
Class HK^ 



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COPVKIGHT DEPOSJT. 



A MEMOIR OF 

THE RIGHT HON. 

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

M.P., O.M., LL.D., D.C.L., LITT.D. 

Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy 



WORKS BY 

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

Library Edition. 8 vols. 8vo. 
Vols. I. and II., 1700-1760. Vols. III. and IV., 1760-1784, 
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1800. 

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LEADERS OF PUBLIC OPINION IN IRELAND. 

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AUGUSTUS TO CHARLEMAGNE. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 

HISTORY OF THE RISE AND INFLUENCE OF THE 

SPIRIT OF RATIONALISM IN EUROPE. 2 vols. 
Crown 8vo. 

DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY. 

Cabinet Edition. 2 vols. Large Crown 8vo. $5.00 net. 

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/rfe c^^c 



A MEMOIR OF 

THE RIGHT HON. 

William Edward Hartpole Lecky 

M.P., O.M., LL.D., D.C.L., LITT.D. 
Member of the French Institute and of the British Academy 



BY 

HIS WIFE 



vV^&Aam^Vfc^ 



You value life ; then do not squander time, for time is the stuff of life. 

Franklin 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

91 and 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 

1909 






Copyright, 1909, by 
Longmans, Green, and Co. 



: 



c <i o 



PREFACE 

This memoir has been written in accordance with the 
wish expressed by many of Mr. Lecky's friends that 
there should be some record of his life. ' It is the priv- 
ilege of a great writer/ wrote one of them after his 
death, 'to leave an immortal personality behind him; 
but though his books will live, there was much about 
his rare and singularly fine type of character that one 
feels that those who did not come under his personal 
influence will never fully realise.' To recall that per- 
sonal element as far as possible — without infringing 
more than he would have wished on the domain of. 
private life — has been my endeavour. Lecky himself 
never encouraged the idea that there should be a biog- 
raphy of him. On the contrary, he wished to live 
through his books alone. He did not keep a journal. 
He did not think it worth while that his daily doings 
should be recorded. A little 'pocket-diary/ with 
some notes, of the year 1855, and a series of minute 
almanacks, with two interruptions, from the year 
1862 upwards, in which he wrote down every Monday 
the place where he was, are all that exists in that line. 
Such details about his boyhood as have been given in 
this memoir were gathered chiefly by me from his own 
lips. Unfortunately there are no letters of his of that 
time. From the year 1859 — when he was twenty -one 
— he kept commonplace books which contain his views 



VI WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

on a variety of subjects, and at a later period he made 
entries in a notebook about the progress of his literary- 
work. His early letters to friends throw a good deal 
of light on the formation of his character and opinions, 
and I am especially indebted to Mr. Arthur Booth for 
letters and extracts from letters and for information 
about his college life. Mr. Booth was an intimate 
friend of his, and corresponded with him from the time 
he left the University. Another college friend, the 
late Judge Addison, also kindly gave me a few letters 
and recollections of those days. A certain number of 
letters besides have been placed at my disposal, and 
for these my thanks are due to the Dowager Mar- 
chioness of Dufferin and Ava, the Lady Margaret Cecil, 
the Dowager Lady Acton, Madame de Beaufort, Mrs. 
Bayard, the Hon. Emily Lawless, Lady Blennerhassett, 
Mrs. Tyndall, Mrs. J. R. Green, Mrs. O'Connor Morris, 
Mrs. C. Litton Falkiner, Miss Taylor, Miss Honor 
Brooke, Miss Hartpole Bowen, Miss A. Wilmot Chet- 
wode, Miss Froude, Lord Killanin, the Hon. Albert 
Canning, the Dean of St. Patrick's, Sir Henry Wrixon, 
Sir Thomas Snagge, Mr. J. F. Rhodes, Mr. H. C. Lea, 
Professor Knight, Mr. W. E. Tallents, Mr. E. Salmon, 
Mr. T. Norton Longman, Mr. G. Gavan Duffy, Mr. A. 
O'Neill Daunt, the executors of Mr. G. W. Rusden, and 
the late Sir James Go wan. 

It is not without great hesitation that I give to the 
world letters which were never intended for publication, 
and which were written with all the freedom of private 
intercourse; but I venture to do so in the belief that 
some of these spontaneous expressions of opinion 
represent more vividly than any description could do 



PREFACE Vll 

the characteristics of a personality which those who 
knew him best had most occasion to admire. 

Rather than ask friends to write appreciations of 
him I have confined myself to inserting some letters 
written to him on various occasions, and a few to my- 
self, in which the writers expressed their views concern- 
ing him and his work. I gratefully acknowledge the 
permission to do so given me by the Dowager Mar- 
chioness of Dufferin, Countess Stanhope, Mrs. Bayard, 
the Hon. Andrew White, Lord Tennyson, Lord Rath- 
more, the Hon. Rollo Russell, the Right Hon. Sir 
Alfred Lyall, Sir Henry Wrixon, the Dean of St. 
Patrick's, Dr. Mahaffy, Dr. Dowden, Mr. Arthur 
Milman, Mr. Gladstone's trustees, Mr. H. C. Lea, Mr. 
C. Cairnes, Mr. A. Bence Jones, and Mr. T. Norton 
Longman. I also much appreciate the courtesy 
shown me by the proprietors of the Times, the Spec- 
tator, and the Dublin Daily Express, in allowing me to 
make use of papers and letters of Mr. Lecky which 
were published by them. Mr. Booth has had the great 
kindness to read over my MS. and to make many use- 
ful suggestions. 

In order to condense the story of a full life of sixty- 
five years into one volume, much had necessarily to 
be omitted, and the letters sent me by several corre- 
spondents could not on that account be included ; but 
I am none the less grateful to the senders. The social 
side of his life had to be kept within proportionate 
limits, and it is with regret that I have been unable 
to bring within its scope the names of many whose 
kindness and friendship he valued. 

Elisabeth Lecky. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Preface v 

List op Portraits xv 

CHAPTER I 

1838-1861 
Lecky's parentage. Family history. His mother's 
death. His father marries again. Graigavoran. 
Visit to Scotland. School life: Lewes; Monkstown; 
Armagh; Cheltenham College. His father's death. 
Quedgeley. Marriage of his stepmother. Bushy 
Park. Enters Trinity College Dublin. Friend- 
ships. Divinity course. Oratory. Historical So- 
ciety. Gold medal. Early poems. Travels. Pub- 
lication of the 'Religious Tendencies of the Age.' 
He graduates and leaves the University. Switzer- 
land. Oberammergau. Italy. Publication of 
'Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland'. . . . 1-30 

CHAPTER II 

1861-1867 
First visit to Spain. He decides not to take Orders. 
Begins the 'History of Rationalism.' Naples. 
Monkstown. Italy. Bagneres. Chapters on the 
Declining Sense of the Miraculous. Pyrenees. 
Second visit to Spain. Reads in foreign libraries. 
Views about a profession. Lecture at Portarling- 
ton. Publication of the 'Rationalism.' Reviews. 
London Society. Visit to tenants. Venice. Spez- 



X WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

zia. Meets Mr. Lever. Bagneres. Montreux. Dr. page 
Newman. Begins the ' History of European Morals.' 
Literary methods 31-57 

CHAPTER III 
1867-1870 

Settles in London. Lord Russell. Elected to Athenaeum 
Club. Mr. Gladstone. Reform Bill of 1867. Ba- 
gneres. Lord Carnwath's death. Lecture at the 
Royal Institution. Irish Church disestablishment. 
Publication of the 'History of European Morals.' 
Reviews. Irish Church Bill. Grand Jury in Queen's 
County. Third visit to Spain. Lord Morris. Rome. 
(Ecumenical Council. San Remo. Irish Land 
Bill 58-80 

CHAPTER IV 

1870-1873 

Queen Sophia of the Netherlands. The House in the 
Wood. Franco-German war. Revision of the ' Lead- 
ers of Public Opinion.' Engagement. Views on 
the peace conditions. Darwin's 'Descent of Man.' 
London life. Marriage. Travels. Publication of 
the revised edition of the 'Leaders.' Florence. 
Rome. Proposes to write the 'History of England 
in the Eighteenth Century.' Return to England. 
Knowsley. London society. Mr. Carlyle. Irish 
university education. Review of Mr. Froude's 
'English in Ireland.' Family bereavements . . 81-113 

CHAPTER V 

1873-1878 

Dutch country life. Ireland. Views on a seat in Par- 
liament. A Home Rule debate. Working habits. 



CONTENTS XI 

British Museum. Record Office. The Literary page 
Society. The Club. Mr. Herbert Spencer. Pro- 
fessor Huxley. Scheme of the 'History.' Visit to 
Ireland. Irish friends. Reads MSS. in Dublin 
Castle. Revises the ' History of European Morals.' 
Atlantic Coast scenery. Speeches. Return to Lon- 
don. Bulgarian massacres. Mr. Gladstone's Black- 
heath speech. Paris. St. James's Hall Conference. 
Completion of the first two volumes of the ' History.' 
Death of Queen Sophia. Death of Mr. Motley. 
St. Moritz. Publication of the first two volumes. 
Aim of the ' History.' Appreciative letters . . . 114-144 

CHAPTER VI 

1878-1882 

Portrait by Watts. Visit to Oxford. Italian lakes. 
Switzerland. Visit to Professor Tyndall. Senior's 
'Conversations.' Spencer Walpole's 'History.' 
Irish university education. The Hague. Ireland. 
Dublin University degree. Mr. Gladstone on the 
Evangelical Movement. Reply in the 'Nineteenth 
Century.' Reads MSS. in Dublin Castle and Four 
Courts. Death of Mr. Bowen. Henry Brooke. Let- 
ters to Mr. O'Neill Daunt. M. Renan. Visit to Ten- 
nyson. Carlyle. Dissolution. More letters to Mr. 
O'Neill Daunt. Carlyle's death. 'Reminiscences.' 
Carlyle Memorial. Irish Land Act, 1881. Mr. 
O'Neill Daunt's 'Catechism of the History of Ire- 
land.' Mr. Richard Brooke's hymns 145-184 

CHAPTER VII 

1882-1886 

Publication of volumes hi. and iv. of the 'History.' 
American appreciation. Lord Acton. Tour in Spain. 
Phoenix Park murders. Mr. O'Neill Daunt. Dublin. 
Madame Ristori. State Papers. Condition of Ire- 



Xll WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

land. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy. Trials of Phoenix page 
Park murderers. Tipperary. Jura Mountains. Mr. 
J. R. Green. Transvaal delegates. M. Mori. 
Switzerland. Amiel. M. de Gonzenbach. Soudan 
expedition. Gordon. Lord Wolseley. LL.D de- 
gree, St. Andrews. 'On an Old Song.' Sir Henry 
Taylor's Autobiography. Paris Archives. 'The 
Dawn of Creation and of Worship' 185-211 

CHAPTER VIII 

1886-1888 

Anticipations of Home Rule Bill. Letters to the 
Times. Split in the Liberal Party. Speech in 
Kensington Town Hall. On a Nationalist Parlia- 
ment. Sir W. Harcourt and Grattan's Parliament. 
Demand for the 'Leaders.' Defeat of Home Rule 
Bill. Completion of volumes v. and vi. of the 
'History.' Travels. Lake of Geneva. Publication 
of the new volumes. Letters and Reviews. Holi- 
day in Italy. Irish Vice-Royalty. Jubilee. Tour 
in the Harz. Paris Archives. Canon Miles. Lib- 
eral Unionist meeting at Nottingham. Pelham 
Papers 212-236 

CHAPTER IX 

1888-1890 

Unionist Textbook. Mr. Matthew Arnold. Speeches at 
the Literary Fund Dinner and at the Academy. 
Portrait by Mr. Wells for Grillion's Club. D.C.L. 
degree, Oxford. Donegal. Wexford. Monaster- 
boice. Democracy. Parnell Commission. Anti- 
Home Rule Meeting, Birmingham. Mr. Bryce's 
'History.' Harz Mountains. Completion of the 
'History of England in the Eighteenth Century.' 
Bust by Boehm. His death. Formative influences. 



CONTENTS Xlll 

Miss Lawless' 'Essex in Ireland.' Cardinal Man- page 
ning. On Catholicism. Death of Newman. Sum- 
mer holidays. Grande Chartreuse. Publication of 
the last two volumes of the • History.' Reviews 
and letters 237-260 

CHAPTER X 

1890-1892 

Revision of the 'History of the Eighteenth Century.' 
Writes various essays: Ireland in the Light of 
History; Why Home Rule is Undesirable; Madame 
de Stael; Carlyle's Message to his Age; Sir Robert 
Peel's Private Correspondence. American Copy- 
right Bill. Effects of Parnell divorce case. Litt.D. 
degree, Cambridge. T.C.D. dinner. Travels. 
Poems. National Portrait Gallery. Begins ' Democ- 
racy and Liberty.' Regius Professorship of History 
at Oxford. Royal Literary Fund. Letters on Home 
Rule. 'The Political Outlook.' Sir Charles Gavan 
Duffy. Dublin University Tercentenary. General 
Election. Holiday in the Alps. 'The Political 
Value of History.' Lord Tennyson's death. Com- 
pletion of the revised edition of the ' History' . . 261-282 

CHAPTER XI 

1892-1894 

'Thoughts on History.' Home Rule Bill, 1893. Articles 
on Home Rule. Carrigart. Letter on the situation. 
Albert Hall meeting. Irish delegates at Hatfield. 
Death of Lord Derby. Defeat of Home Rule Bill. 
President of the Cheltonian Society. Vosbergen. 
Mr. Rhodes' ' History.' ' Israel among the Nations.' 
'The Eye of the Grey Monk.' Death of Sir Andrew 
Clark. Lecture at the Imperial Institute. Pessi- 
mism. French Institute. Memoir of Lord Derby. 



XIV WILLIAM EDWAKD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Due d'Aumale. Resignation of Mr. Gladstone. page 
Lord Rosebery succeeds. Madonna di Campiglio. 
Mr. Froude's death. Tribute to Lord Russell. 
Canada and Copyright 283-302 



CHAPTER XII 

1894-1896 

LL.D. degree at Glasgow. General election. Mr. 
Rhode's' 'History.' Mr. Bayard. Offer of Dublin 
University Seat. Centenary of the French Institute. 
Contested Election. The Religious Cry. Answer to 
Correspondents. Clonakilty contra mundum. Result 
of the Election. Congratulations. Maiden Speech. 
Land Bill. Publication of 'Democracy and Lib- 
erty.' Appreciative Letters. Critics. Essay on 
Gibbon. Essay on Swift. Judge O'Connor Morris. 
Debates on the Land Bill 303-327 



CHAPTER XIII 

1896-1898 

Mr. Andrew White's 'Warfare of Science with The- 
ology.' Travels in Austria and Hungary. T.C.D. 
Historical and Philosophical Societies. ' Cambridge 
Modern History.' The 'Map of Life.' Introduction 
to 'Life of Lord Stratford.' The Irish University 
Question. Report of Commission on Financial Rela- 
tions. Over-taxation of Ireland. Combined Protest 
of Unionists and Nationalists. Sir Horace Plunkett. 
English Agricultural Rating Act. Ireland's Griev- 
ance. Lord Dufferin's Views. Sunday Closing Act. 
Diamond Jubilee. Privy Councillorship. Society 
in Trinity College. Private Papers of Wilber- 
force. Ecclefechan. Burke Centenary. Speech on 
Burke 328-358 



CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER XIV page 

1898-1900 

Irish University Question. Irish Local Government Bill. 
Centenary of the Rebellion. Introduction to Car- 
lyle's 'French Revolution.' 'Mr. Gregory's Letter- 
box.' England and Germany. England and the 
United States. Holland. Cannes. Dublin. Alex- 
andra College. Introduction to the revised edition 
of 'Democracy and Liberty.' Portrait of Mr. Glad- 
stone. Distress in the West of Ireland. Old Age 
Pensions Committee. Report. Article on Old Age 
Pensions in the Forum. Irish Literary Theatre. 
Scotland. Holland. Completion of the 'Map of 
Life.' South African War. Moral Aspects of the 
War. Florence. Financial Relations. Defence of 
T.C.D. Dean Milman. Queen Victoria's Visit to 
Ireland. Irish Debates. Holiday in Ireland. Union- 
ist Dissatisfaction. General Election. Spiddal. Uni- 
versity Election 359-389 

CHAPTER XV 

1900-1903 

College Historical Society. Autumn Session. Death 
of Queen Victoria. Her Moral Influence. Last 
Revision of the ' Leaders of Public Opinion.' Review 
Mr. Childers' Life.' Compulsory Purchase. Seri- 
ous Illness. Harrogate. Vosbergen. Royal Com- 
mission on Irish University Education. British 
Academy. Torquay. Dublin. Resignation of Seat 
in Parliament. Requisition from Trinity College. 
Postponement of Resignation. The Coronation. 
The Order of Merit. Dinner to Lord Roberts. Last 
Speech. Nauheim. Autumn Session. Final Resigna- 
tion of Seat. Publication of the Revised and En- 
larged Edition of the 'Leaders of Public Opinion.' 



xvi WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

On Arbitration. On an English-speaking Alliance. page 
Italian Lakes. Land Bill of 1903. Fiscal Ques- 
tion. Sir Henry Wrixon. Crowborough. Mount 
Browne. Increasing Ill-health. The End. St. 
Patrick's Cathedral. Statue in Trinity College. 
Tribute from Lord Rathmore ....... 390-420 



Index 421 



LIST OF PORTRAITS 
OF WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LEGKY 

PHOTOGRAVURE 

From a Photograph by Chancellor & Son, 

1888 Frontispiece 

From a Photograph of a Group of Members 
of the Historical Society, Trinity College, 
Dublin, 1860 . . . . To face p. 24 

From a Photograph by Mayall, 1871 . . . . " 92 

From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry ... " 202 

From a Photograph by Bassano, 1897 ... " 330 



MEMOIR 

OF 

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 
CHAPTER I 

1838-1861. 

Lecky's parentage — Family history — His mother's death — 
His father marries again — Graigavoran — Visit to Scotland 
— School life ; Lewes ; Monkstown ; Armagh ; Cheltenham 
College — His father's death — Quedgeley — Marriage of his 
stepmother — Bushy Park — Enters Trinity College Dub- 
lin — Friendships — Divinity course — Oratory — Histori- 
cal Society — Gold Medal — Early poems — Travels — 
Publication of the ' Religious Tendencies of the Age ' — 
He graduates and leaves the University — Switzerland — 
Oberammergau — Italy — Publication of ' Leaders of Public 
Opinion in Ireland.' 

The parentage of remarkable men always has a cer- 
tain interest, whether — as in the case of Goethe — ■ 
they can trace all their characteristics to it, or whether 
the transcendent faculty which distinguishes them 
appears to be a freak of nature irrespective of heredity. 
There are instances where an eminent man seems to 
emerge out of commonplace surroundings, while 
there are yet distinctive elements in his more remote 
ancestry which throw some light on his personality 
and are worth recording. 

William Edward Hartpole Lecky was born on 

March 26, 1838, at Newtown Park, co. Dublin. He 

was the son of Mr. John Hartpole Lecky, J. P., by 

his first marriage with Miss Mary Anne Tallents, of 

2 1 



2 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Newark. The Lecky family were of Scottish origin, 
and there is evidence of their having been in Ireland 
from the beginning of the seventeenth century. Tra- 
dition connects them with the Leckies who owned 
an estate on the Gargunnock hills in Stirlingshire, 
and says that the laird of those days had four sons 
who migrated to Ulster. The eldest, Averil, was the 
ancestor of the Londonderry Lecky s; the second, 
Thomas, settled in Ballylin, near Rathmelton, co. 
Donegal, and had a son, Robert, born in 1649, who 
in the course of time removed to Carlow, and was 
the ancestor of the Carlow branches. Edward Lecky 
was lineally descended from him. The Leckys in 
the North of Ireland had a considerable share in pub- 
lic affairs. No fewer than nine members of the fam- 
ily have been mayors of Derry. Captain Alexander 
Lecky, who was High Sheriff in 1677, took a promi- 
nent part in the defence of Derry during the famous 
siege of 1688, and was afterwards Mayor. Another 
member represented the City of Derry in the Irish 
Parliament in the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The Carlow Leckys contented themselves with 
their duties as landowners, and there is nothing 
special to record of them, except that some of them 
in former generations belonged to the Society of 
Friends and possessed the peaceful and benevolent 
qualities which characterise that body. Edward 
Lecky's grandfather was married to Maria Hartpole, 
daughter of Robert Hartpole, of Shrule Castle, and 
of his wife, Lady Harriet Stratford. 1 Miss Hartpole 



1 She was a daughter of early English history. They 

John Stratford, first Earl of migrated to Ireland about the 

Aldborough, whose ancestors middle of the seventeenth cen- 

played a considerable part in tury. 



FAMILY HISTORY 6 

and her sister were the last representatives of a fam- 
ily who once played a great part in Ireland. The 
most prominent of them was Robert Hartpole, lord 
of the manors of Shrule and Monksgrange, who was 
Constable of Carlow Castle, and Governor of the 
Queen's County under Queen Elizabeth; and who, 
after the manner of the time, ruled with an iron hand 
over a refractory population. He built Shrule Castle 
on the west bank of the river Barrow, two and a half 
miles north of the town of Carlow; and it was a pop- 
ular superstition after his death that his shade haunted 
its precincts. 1 More than one Hartpole was a mem- 
ber of the Irish Parliament. The last male represent- 
ative of the family was George Hartpole, Edward 
Lecky's great-uncle, whose adventures are described, 
not without various inaccuracies, by the romancing 
pen of Jonah Barrington. He died leaving his two 
sisters heiresses of the family property, which through 
extravagance had considerably dwindled away. The 
eldest married Mr. John Lecky, and brought in her 
dowry Shrule Castle ; 2 the second married Mr. Charles 
Bowen. 

If the Hartpoles were a turbulent race, Lecky's 
relatives on the mother's side were of a more academic 



1 His tombstone, represent- there at the time {Journal of 
ing his recumbent figure in the Co. Kildare Arch. Soci- 
armour, with a Latin inscrip- ety, January number, 1904, 
tion, and the date 1594, orig- Memorials of the Dead, vol. iii, 
inally in St. Mary's Church, No. 1, which gives an account 
Carlow, found after many of the Hartpole family), 
vicissitudes a resting-place 2 It was sold and is now a 
at Kilnacourt, Portarlington, ruin. The date 1520 is still 
through the exertions of his traceable over the great fire- 
descendant, Mr. Charles Hart- place of what was once the 
pole Bowen, who was living stateroom. 



4 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

turn of mind. Three members of the Tallents fam- 
ily were graduates of Magdalene College, Cambridge, 
in the seventeenth century: Francis Tallents, his 
brother, and his son. Francis Tallents and his brother 
were Fellows, and the former was also President of 
the college between the years 1642 and 1653. He 
received Presbyterian Orders, and was conspicuous in 
troublous times for his large-minded Christianity, 
his courage and tolerance. Baxter describes him as 
a 'good scholar, a godly, blameless divine, most emi- 
nent for extraordinary prudence and moderation, and 
peaceableness towards all'; and Matthew Henry, who 
preached his funeral sermon and wrote a short life 
of him, speaks of 'his politeness being a great orna- 
ment to his learning and piety ' — the inherited good 
breeding of the old regime, for his family were of 
French origin. 1 ' In his old age he retained the learn- 
ing both of the school and the academy to admiration. 
He had something to communicate to those who con- 
versed with him concerning all sorts of learning; but 
his masterpiece, in which no man was more ready, was 
history.' Though in his writings he was more a chron- 
icler of events and dates than an historian, still he 
combined the historical sense with some of those 
identical traits of character which a few centuries 
later distinguished his kinsman. 

He had only one son, who died without leaving 
children, and Edward Lecky, and the present repre- 
sentatives of the Tallents family are descended from 
his brother Godfrey. The family were from early 
times connected with Newark, and Edward Lecky's 
grandfather, Mr. W. E. Tallents, was a solicitor there. 
He was a man of high character and great abilities, 



Dictionary of National Biography, vol. lv. 



HIS PAEENTS 5 

who had more than a local reputation. In 1830-1832 
he was employed by the Government to assist in the 
special commission of assize for the trial of prisoners 
concerned in the machine-breaking riots. 1 He was 
agent of the Duke of Newcastle at Newark, and con- 
ducted Mr. Gladstone's first election. There is much 
contemporary evidence of the respect in which he 
was held and the regret felt when he died at the age 
of fifty-seven. In a letter to his widow, written Jan- 
uary 24, 1838, Mr. Gladstone dwells on the loss which 
he had himself sustained ' in the removal of a friend so 
kind, so high-minded, of such distinguished powers 
and such unwearied assiduity'; and when, some years 
afterwards, Mr. Gladstone severed his connexion 
with Newark he paid a fresh tribute to his memory 
in writing to his son, Mr. Godfrey Tallents, Edward 
Lecky's uncle. 2 

Some months before his death, in 1837, his daughter 
had married Mr. John Hartpole Lecky, who was at 
that time living with his parents at Cullenswood 
House, near Dublin. He was a well-read, high-prin- 
cipled, kind-hearted gentleman, who seems to have 
had a great many friends. He had been called to the 
Bar, but, having independent means, he exercised no 
profession. He was a magistrate of the Queen's 
County, where he had property. His wife, Edward 

1 The Commission was held the highest tone. I can wish 
at Winchester, Salisbury, you nothing more in regard to 
Reading and Abingdon, Dor- the observance of every social 
Chester and Nottingham. relation than that you may 

2 Mr. Gladstone wrote, Jan- continue to be worthy of him, 
uary 14, 1846: 'From the son and with his honoured name to 
of my esteemed friend, your hand down through your own 
father, I never expected any generation his very remarkable 
line of conduct except one of character.' 



6 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Lecky's mother, is remembered as an attractive per- 
sonality with intellectual tastes and strong religious 
principles. They lived at Maesgwyllydd house, New- 
town Park, near Dublin, where their son was born. 
The earliest mention we find of him is in a letter from 
his mother to her friend Miss Parker, afterwards 
Lady Cardwell, 1 four months after his birth: 

' I have under this roof one of the greatest blessings 
that can be bestowed — namely, a dear, fine little 
boy, who was born on March 26, and I am thankful 
to say that he is so strong that I have never had an 
anxious hour on his account. You will easily believe 
he is already a great pet. I am afraid I shall love him 
too much.' 

Mrs. Lecky's happiness was brief. She died of con- 
sumption at Hastings, at the age of twenty-two, on 
March 31, 1839, when her boy was little more than a 
year old. Two years afterwards his father married 
again — Miss Wilmot, daughter of Colonel Wilmot, 
an amiable, accomplished lady, who conscientiously 
tried to make up to the motherless child for the loss 
of that precious possession, a mother's love. He was 
in fact, never told that she was not his mother till 
shortly before he went to Cheltenham School, and, 
though he put down the date in a notebook, the fact 
does not seem to have impressed him much at the 
time. When he was about four years old his father 
and stepmother went to Graigavoran, a place in the 
Queen's County, where they lived from 1842 to 1844, 
and where their son George Eardley was born, who 
was afterwards in the 78th Highlanders. 



1 After Lady Card well's his mother, which had been 
death Lecky received a bundle carefully treasured by her. 
of letters, written to her by 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS 7 

They went about a good deal among their friends, 
taking their children with them, and Edward Lecky 
remembered a visit of some length at Lady Maitland's, 
Lindores, Perthshire, which impressed him on account 
of her being the widow of Sir Frederick Maitland, who 
had conveyed Napoleon to St. Helena. His first 
experience of school life was at Dr. Stanley's, for half 
a year at Walmer and afterwards at Lewes, where 
he was with two or three other boys, when he was 
about nine, while his parents stayed at Storrington, 
in Sussex, where his half-sister was born. We get 
a description of him in a letter from Mrs. Stanley to 
his stepmother. She speaks of his reserved character, 
and after mentioning some small faults of inattention 
and indolence, she adds: 'But these are minor diffi- 
culties to contend with. None who know him can 
doubt his gentle, amiable disposition or the kindness 
of his heart, and on the one great point of all he cer- 
tainly shows more feeling and interest than is usual 
for so young a child.' At the same time he already 
showed a very independent spirit. Lewes was noto- 
rious for its Fifth of November riots. He remembered 
sympathising with the rioters, and his master telling 
him that his feelings were in defiance of law and 
order. He had a great liking for geology, and his 
favourite pastime was seeking specimens for a collec- 
tion which Mr. John Lecky, his grandfather, had 
given him. 

After about a year at Dr. Stanley's he returned to 
Ireland and went to a day school at Kingstown, his 
father and stepmother having now settled in Long- 
ford Terrace, Monkstown, where they lived for many 
years. The O'Connell agitation, the Irish famine 
(which, on account of the scarcity of bread, was felt 
in every household) , the crowds of beggars, the Smith 



8 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

O'Brien rebellion — all made a deep impression on 
his mind, and in those boyish days his sympathies 
were strongly National — a very different National- 
ism from that of to-day. He used often to go to 
Woodbrook, Portarlington, where his father's old 
friends and connexions, the Wilmot Chetwodes, lived. 
Swift, the friend of the Knightley Chetwode of his 
day, to whom much of his correspondence is addressed, 
had been a frequent visitor at Woodbrook, and he 
is said to have planted some of the stately beeches 
which are a feature of the place. Amidst such sur- 
roundings and traditions Edward Lecky first came 
under the spell of that extraordinary personality 
which he afterwards described in his 'Leaders of 
Public Opinion in Ireland.' 

A survivor of those days * who still lives at Wood- 
brook remembers him as a fair, quiet, gentle boy. He 
used to ride on a pony, write poetry and sermons, 
practise preaching, and was much occupied with 
religious controversy, being assiduous in his attend- 
ance at the Mariner's Church at Kingstown, where 
Mr. Brooke — the father of Mr. Stopford Brooke — ■ 
then preached. In 1850 he was taken by his father 
and stepmother to Switzerland during the holidays, 
and the following year to Bagneres, which he visited 
many times in after-life. In 1851 he was for half a 
year at Armagh School, and in the autumn of 1852 
he went to Cheltenham College. He had not been 
there more than a few weeks when he was called back 
to Ireland by the illness of his father, who died at 
the early age of forty-six. This event cast a shadow 
over his youth. He returned to college, which he at 



1 Miss Alice Wilmot Chetwode. She and her brother Knightley 
were among his oldest and best friends. 



AT CHELTENHAM AND QUEDGELEY 9 

first greatly disliked, being in a large establishment 
with forty boys ; but when this was broken up and he 
went to a house where there was only one other boy, 
and where he had a room to himself, he found it much 
more tolerable. School life, however, was never con- 
genial to him. Being very shy, and not having an 
overflow of health and spirits, he disliked the rough- 
ness of the outdoor games and did not join in them. 
His tastes lay in quite another direction. He geol- 
ogised a great deal, for which there was much scope 
at Cheltenham, and it was no doubt his own experi- 
ence which made him write in his 'Commonplace 
Book' some years after: 'It is pleasant to think in a 
geological museum that the discovery of every stone 
you see gave a pleasure.' He probably gave a stim- 
ulus to the study of geology in the college, for a little 
museum there dates from that time. In his leisure 
hours he also indulged in writing a large amount of 
poetry. He had no ambition for school honours, and 
though he liked some of the lessons he did not much 
care to work in the groove that was set before him. 
From early days, he said, he made it a point, when he 
possibly could, to take his own independent line, and 
he showed great persistence in all he did — an invalu- 
able quality, which helped him to conquer obstacles, 
for his tastes were neither understood nor encouraged 
at home. 

On leaving Cheltenham in 1855 he went to a 
tutor, the Rev. Erskine Knollys, at Quedgeley, near 
Gloucester, to prepare for his entrance examination at 
Dublin University. In a date book with jottings of 
that year one obtains glimpses of his varying moods, 
his fits of depression sometimes caused by ill-health, 
his impatience to be independent of school and home 
authorities, though he liked Mr. Knollys personally 



10 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

— ' 26th of March, my birthday. Oh ! that it was 
my 24th or 25th. It opens in gloom, but "sorrow 
may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn- 
ing"' — his interest in public affairs, his love of 
nature, which often inspired his poetic effusions, and 
the thread of religious principle and sense of duty 
running through it all. He records the events of the 
Crimean war; mentions the publication of volumes 
iii. and iv. of Macaulay's ' History/ speaks of frequent 
visits to Gloucester, where the cathedral, the read- 
ing-room, and the bookshops were an attraction; and 
he acquired, among other books, Burke's 'French 
Revolution,' which remained one of his favourites 
through life. He also used to read to some infirm old 
people. Mr. Knollys had no worse complaint to 
make of him than that he was ' very partial to work- 
ing in a desultory, fitful way,' and that he was apt 
'to adopt one-sided views with regard to the events 
and discussions of the day.' ' He had, indeed,' says 
a Trinity College friend, 1 speaking of a somewhat later 
period, 'an inveterate habit, which exposed him to a 
great deal of misunderstanding, of defending in con- 
versation whatever position happened to be attacked.' 
More than thirty years after, writing to Lecky's 
stepmother, Mr. Knollys spoke with pride of his 
former pupil. 

During the year Edward Lecky was at Quedgeley 
his stepmother married the eighth Earl of Carnwath, 
whose first wife was the daughter of Grattan, and the 
family lived for a time at Bushy Park, Enniskerry, a 
small country place charmingly situated in the midst 
of the beautiful scenery of the County Wicklow. Its 



1 'Early Recollections of Mr. Lecky, by a College Friend/ in 
the National Review, March, 1904. 



ENTERS TRINITY COLLEGE 11 

proximity to Dublin enabled Edward Lecky, after he 
had entered college, to spend all his leisure time there, 
and he took many a long walk in the Wicklow moun- 
tains, which always had a peculiar fascination for 
him. If at Woodbrook he had imbibed the traditions 
of Swift, it was near Grattan's home, ' amid the Wick- 
low hills and by the Dargle stream, in the heart of one 
of the loveliest valleys in Ireland/ that he was fired 
with enthusiasm for that other leader of public opinion 
'the greatest of Irish orators.' 

In 1855 he passed his examination, obtaining the 
tenth place out of forty candidates, and on February 
4 of the following year he entered college as a Fellow 
Commoner, and occupied rooms at No. 13 in the part 
nicknamed Botany Bay. A new life now began for 
him, a life chiefly of independent study, in which he 
could follow his bent. There were at college with 
him a brilliant group of young men, many of whom 
distinguished themselves in after-life. Among his 
friends were Mr. David Plunket, now Lord Rathmore; 
Mr. Gibson, now Lord Ashbourne; Mr. Fitzgibbon, 
now Lord Justice Fitzgibbon; Mr., now Sir Thomas, 
Snagge; Mr. Addison, afterwards a County Court 
Judge; Mr. Teignmouth Shore, now Canon of Worcester; 
Mr. Arthur Booth; x two sons of Smith O'Brien, Edward 
and Aubrey; Mr. Robert Keith Arbuthnot; and Mr. 
Freeman Wills. 2 



1 The author of Robert Owen became acquainted in after- 
and other works. He is the years, were Sir John Ardagh, 
'College Friend' who wrote Professor Dowden, Sir Den- 
' Early Recollections of Mr. nis Fitzpatrick, Rev. J. P. 
Lecky' in the National Re- Mahaffy, Sir Charles Scott, Dr. 
view of March 1904. Traill, Sir Arthur Wilson, Sir 

2 Among other contempo- Henry Wrixon. 
raries, with some of whom he 



12 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Some of these still remember the pleasant evenings 
spent with Edward Lecky, 'in his bright sitting-room 
lined with books, arranged two deep/ when 'every- 
thing was discussed from John Stuart Mill and Car- 
lyle to Kant, Hegel, and Mommsen.' Those early 
friendships remained to him a precious possession 
through life. Mr. Arthur Booth has given a graphic 
account of his recollections of those days. He and 
Edward Lecky had been some time at college before 
they became acquainted by a pure accident which 
made an impression on both. It was an annual cus- 
tom for the college boys, as they were called, to march 
round the statue of King William in College Green to 
commemorate the battle of the Boyne. This usually 
led to some harmless friction with the townspeople; 
but when a similar demonstration took place on the 
occasion of the entry of Lord Eglinton, the Lord- 
Lieutenant, in March, 1858, a somewhat serious riot 
ensued. The boys attacked the police. The chief 
of the police — an old Peninsular officer — lost his 
head. The Biot Act was hurriedly read, and the 
police charged the students and pursued them within 
the college railings. 1 In a letter to his friend, Mr. 
Knightley Chetwode, who had left college some time 
before, Edward Lecky describes the fray, which he 
called ' the massacre of College Green.' 

'I had been in the enclosure where the affair took 
place, but getting tired, about half an hour before the 
charge, I went into the reading-room, and was at its 
window when the charge was made. Saurin B. was 
in it, but got off safely. Edw. O'Brien was also there. 
He, instead of joining in the rush to the college door, 
went into the open space to one side, imagining that 



1 1 am indebted for some of these particulars to Mr. Booth. 



DIVINITY COURSE 13 

he would not be molested. The police, however, came 
to him and beat him, though he remonstrated and 
did not (not having even a stick) resist. When he 
got out he was a little dizzy, and came up with me to 
take a glass of wine, and got quite right again with 
the exception of a little bruising. I suppose you see 
some paper, so I need not say more upon it. In fact, 
my personal recollections are but few, as I was so 
horrified at the faces streaming with blood and men 
half insensible that I was rather glad to turn away. 
There seems but one opinion here — that the provoca- 
tion in no respect justified the charge.' 

It was while looking on at the proceedings that 
Edward Lecky and Mr. Booth — who were both 
very shy — for the first time spoke to each other, and 
this led to a friendship of over forty years. 

Lecky has described in his 'Formative Influences' 
the currents of thought that prevailed at the time 
he entered college. The agitation caused by the 
Oxford Movement had found its natural channel in 
secessions to Rome, but there was a more serious per- 
turbation in the intellectual atmosphere. The recent 
discoveries in geology with which the name of Sir 
Charles Lyell was prominently associated had thrown 
a new light on the beginnings of the earth and man, 
and the attempts made to reconcile the deductions of 
science with the biblical cosmogony were naturally 
keenly watched. Lecky had always had a strong 
leaning towards theological studies, and looked for- 
ward to a peaceful clerical life in a family living near 
Cork, and so, in addition to the ordinary university 
course, he went through that appointed for divinity 
students. Though he had been brought up in the 
strict Evangelical principles of those days, he ap- 
proached the study of theology, as ' a college friend ' 



14 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

says, 'with a far broader mind than was generally to 
be found among his fellow-students, or even among 
the professors/ and he was never infected with the 
narrow sectarian spirit which had been the bane of 
Ireland. This was due partly to his own independ- 
ence of mind and wide general reading, and partly 
to his having spent some time abroad. He confesses 
to have been perhaps culpably indifferent to college 
ambitions and competitions, and he threw himself 
with intense eagerness into a long course of private 
reading, chiefly relating to the formation and history 
of opinions. The writings of Bishop Butler and the 
personal influence of Archbishop Whately had a large 
and permanent share in moulding his character and 
strengthening in him that sense of duty and love of 
truth which were at all times the guiding principles of 
his life. Simultaneously he read writers of such differ- 
ent opinions as Pascal, Bossuet, Rousseau, Voltaire, 
Bayle, Coleridge, Newman, and Emerson. But his pri- 
vate reading was not confined to the history of opinions. 

' His main enthusiasm was directed to the literature 
and politics of Ireland. He studied the speeches of 
the principal orators and could repeat by heart many 
passages from them; he was thoroughly acquainted 
with the history and especially with the " wrongs " of 
the country; he was saturated with the writings and 
poetry of the patriotic party, and he looked upon a 
junior Fellow, 1 who was the author of " Who Fears to 
Speak of '98," with the feelings of unbounded amira- 
tion. Patriotism seemed to be then his one absorb- 
ing passion: it found expression in his earliest poetry 
and formed the subject of much of his conversation.' 2 

1 The Rev. J. Kells Ingram. the National Review, March, 
2 'Early Recollections of 1904. 
Mr. Lecky, by a College Friend, ' 



PATRIOTISM AND ORATORY 15 

He was, however, not blind to the faults of his 
countrymen: 'The great evils of Ireland,' he wrote 
in 1859, 1 'are mendicity and mendacity'; 'The great 
desideratum in Ireland is a lay public opinion'; and 
in 1862, 2 ' Among the Irish generally there is a want 
of hard intellectuality.' 

He had had from boyhood a passion for oratory, 
and found full scope for it in the Historical Society, 
which he joined two years after he had entered college, 
and where, in 1859 — in his second session — he won 
the Gold Medal which was awarded annually. 'On 
one evening of that session/ writes Judge Snagge, 'he 
rose to his feet in the debate and, to the amazement 
of us all, poured forth a stream of mellifluous and 
finished eloquence that carried all before it. It was 
meteoric. It was not a speech, it was a recited essay, 
but it raised the standard of debating rhetoric enor- 
mously.' 3 

In paying a tribute to Lecky's memory at the first 
meeting of the Society after his death the President 
(Lord Ashbourne) gave his own recollections. He said 
he heard him make his first speech in that society, 
over forty years ago, in the year 1858, and he remem- 
bered the surprise with which they all saw him rise 
and come forward. ' He spoke very much as he spoke 
all through his life, with an extraordinary wealth of 
language, with the most marvellous affluence of illus- 
tration, with the most singular gift he [the President] 
ever knew of giving the most appropriate designations 
to every person and subject, no matter how numerous, 
that he desired to describe.' Lord Ashbourne believed 
that the great success which Lecky achieved among 



Commonplace Book. 2 Ibid. 

! The Academy and Literature, October 31, 1903. 



16 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

his contemporaries by being awarded the Gold Medai 
for oratory had a considerable effect on his character 
and future. It no doubt stimulated him and gave to 
his shy nature the self-confidence which he needed. 
The 'College Friend' says: 

'His speeches were always carefully prepared dur- 
ing long walks on the West Pier at Kingstown, though 
they were not committed to memory. A few notes on 
a slip of paper about two inches long and about one 
wide, crumpled up in the waistcoat pocket, were all he 
carried to remind him of the points in the subject. The 
language was always admirable, rising at times to a 
high pitch of eloquence, perhaps occasionally a little 
too ornate, but producing a distinct thrill through the 
audience. It was said sometimes that the matter was 
more emotional than argumentative, but those who 
had to reply found the task by no means an easy 
one. . . . 

' There can be little doubt that for a long time his 
chief ambition was to become a great orator. His 
library was full of the speeches of the Irish orators. He 
rushed off every Sunday morning after chapel to hear 
Dr. John Gregg (aferwards Bishop of Cork), who was 
then considered the greatest pulpit orator in Dublin. 
Whenever Whiteside, who had a similar reputation at 
the Bar, was to be heard, Lecky might usually be 
seen an admiring listener. He frequently practised 
extempore speaking to himself in his own rooms, and 
no honour he received was so highly prized as the 
Gold Medal of the Historical Society.' 

In a letter to Mr. Knightley Chetwode, Edward 
Lecky gives the following humorous description of 
Whiteside's oratory: 

'13 T.C.D.: Saturday night [postmark May 1, 1859]. 
— Our nomination went off very quietly to-day, and 



THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 17 

Whiteside talked splendid nonsense. It was one of the 
most imposing speeches I ever heard. He spurned 
grammar, trampled on logic, and contemned consist- 
ency, but did it most magnificently. The manner in 
which he intoned some of his sarcasms was perfect. 
He is indeed a most superb humbug, and I have an 
immense admiration for him. ... I passed my degree 
examination on Wednesday and Thursday successfully, 
which is a great consolation.' 

He wrote to the same friend, June 16, 1859: 

'Yesterday we had the closing night at the His- 
torical, which was rather a formidable thing for me, 
as I had to open and reply. The subject was Journal- 
ism — that its growth is beneficial to society. We 
had, I believe, about three or four hundred people 
there, Napier, of course, in the chair. I found that 
I was not the least nervous and liked it all very well. 
The subject, however, not being in my line, I did not 
make one of my best speeches. Also, not having 
the fear of conservatism and the clergy before my 
eyes, I had the audacity to review (in its relation to 
political and sectarian public opinion) the struggles 
for nationality in Ireland and to launch a diatribe at 
the political clergy. . . . This evening the Committee 
have made up the Oratory marks and I have got the 
Gold Medal, which is, I confess, very gratifying to 
me. . . . My marking, they seem to think, is the 
highest which has been in the Society for some years. 
It is a fraction above what Plunket got last year, but 
perhaps they have got into a way of marking higher 
than they did then. Gibson tells me that one of the 
speeches I withdrew was marked very high, so per- 
haps it would have been better if I had kept that in 
and had withdrawn my speech of last night.' 

He then speaks of his first literary venture — a 
volume of poems which he had published when he 
came of age. 



18 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

' My small volume came out last Easter under the 
name of "Hibernicus." My publishers tell me that 
the reviews are often from three to four months after 
the publication, so it is scarcely time to expect any 
notices; hitherto I have only seen two, both very short, 
one praising and one condemning. I feel perfectly 
philosophical about it, and console myself by reflecting 
that those things are always I believe, ultimately ap- 
plied to useful purposes by the small grocer trade, &c. 
It was a very pleasant amusement to me, and that was 
the chief thing. . . - 1 

'This day week I have to attend an "Historical 
dinner" at Salt Hill Hotel, and to deliver sundry 
post-prandial orations, to which I look forward with 
no pleasure. After that I hope to go away for a 
week or ten days — where I do not know. I was 
thinking of either the Wicklow scenery or the Bally- 
mena Conventions. About the 2nd or 3rd July I 
hope to take my degree, and then I mean to go to 
Switzerland.' 

The Bushy Park home had been broken up some 
years before, his relations having gone abroad, and 
Edward Lecky had either spent his holidays with 
them at Brussels, Cannstadt, and Heidelberg (where 

1 Once before Edward Lecky had appeared in print — in the 
College Magazine of December 1857, which contained a short 
poem called 'The Cloud.' 

' How silently yon milk-white cloud 

Is gliding overhead, 
As though above life's busy crowd 

It bore the silent dead. 

And now its snowy wings expand, 

And now again they're furled, 
As though that happy spirit band 

Just saw and fled the world.' 



DR. JOHN GREGG 19 

they lived for a time) , or travelled on his own account. 
The letters he wrote in those years to his friend Mr. 
Knightley Chetwode give some idea of his move- 
ments. During a journey to the Lakes in September 
1858 he met Dr. John Gregg at Windermere, the per- 
son in Ireland whom, after Smith O'Brien, he most 
wished to know. He found him 

' exceedingly pleasant and at the same time very odd. 
We talked a great deal about oratory, and it was 
quite amusing to see how enthusiastically fond of it 
he is and how intensely he admires it. He seems 
quite up in almost all English, Irish, and Latin orators, 
and as I knew them pretty well also we got on fa- 
mously. He has also managed to hear most of the great 
preachers in the kingdom. He himself is more sus- 
ceptible of atmospheric influences than, I think, any- 
one I know. He was perfectly wretched about the 
weather. He says in such weather he can't get up 
his spirits or preach or do anything well. He was 
full of odd pithy remarks, and so very free from cant, 
though a clergyman — such an intense admirer of man 
and of mind. Thus he was talking of some kinds of 
scenery which is seen best alone, and the reason he 
gave was " that mind is so far superior to matter that if 
your companion has any of it, the matter is liable to 
be lost in the mind." ' 

They agreed, too, about the wrongs of Ireland: 

. . . 'Mr. G. seemed greatly to admire O'Connell's 
genius, appearance, and oratory, and to think that his 
agitation was not far at one time from succeeding. 
He also thinks that if there were but one religion in 
Ireland, no matter which it were, repeal would prob- 
ably have passed. He believes, however, that it 
would probably eventuate in the dismemberment of 
the Empire, and that the R. C. party are not to be 
trusted.' 



20 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

His love of travelling at that time was insatiable, 
and his journeys had a considerable share in his devel- 
opment and often served a purpose he had in view. 
While writing his first prose book, 'The Religious 
Tendencies of the Age/ he says in a letter to Mr. K. 
Chetwode, dated from Trinity College Dublin, Novem- 
ber 1859, that he had been travelling through Switzer- 
land, the Italian lakes, Milan, Venice, Solferino, 
Padua, Verona, Trieste, the Caverns of Adelsberg, 
Vienna, Dresden, Prague, Cologne, Holland, and 
part of Belgium. He had been reading a very great 
quantity of French literature during the journey, 
studying pictures, improving his French, and practis- 
ing English composition. ' I have seen several very 
interesting people of different nations,' he wrote, ' and 
have enjoyed myself very much. Not to speak of 
secular matters ... I have been taking a good deal 
to French Roman Catholicism and to the Greek and 
Russian churches with their dissenters.' Italy, where 
he had now been for the first time, appeared to him as 
'the type of genius among the nations,' l and the 
pictures of Madonnas and saints must have inspired 
the comparison. 'Some people are mere aspiring 
intellects, like the pictures of cherubims by the old 
masters, heads and wings and nothing more.' 2 

'We had the Historical opening night last Wednes- 
day,' he continues in the letter already quoted, ' and 
one of the grandest addresses I ever heard from Plun- 
ket. He delivered it, instead of reading it, and his 
delivery is, I think, finer than that of any speaker I 
know; I should be inclined to put him pretty much at 



1 Commonplace Book, 1859. painters should have neglected 

2 Ibid. 'How curious it is,' the hand, almost the best in- 
he observes, 'that nearly all dex of the mind.' 



DIVINITY EXAMINATION 21 

the head of the living speakers of Ireland. Dudley, 
another of our Historical men, has got Mr. Maturin's 
curacy; I heard him preach last Sunday. A son of 
Fitzgibbon, the lawyer, is, I believe, to be the star 
this year. Napier has given a gold medal for com- 
position, which has been gained by Gibson, whose 
essay he praised to the skies. Gibson is publishing 
it with his name and moderator distinctions. I am, 
as usual, going on with Divinity, writing, reading, and 
studying oratory. . . .' 

' 13 Trinity College, Tuesday [February I860]. — I 
returned from the North of Ireland about three or 
four weeks ago, and have since been reading almost 
incessantly (as I was in the North), for besides my 
Divinity examination, which is very formidable, I 
have been reading multitudes of books in some other 
departments which I had previously studied little or 
not at all. My Divinity examination is towards the 
end of March, but I do not mean to give up my rooms 
for some time after, as I have still much to read in the 
library.' 

On March 29 he refuses an invitation from the same 
friend to stay at Woodbrook because 

'I am just now perfectly overwhelmed with litera- 
ture. I can only keep my rooms for a very limited 
time. I have more to read than I can well compress 
into that time, and do not think I can just at present 
leave college at all except perhaps for a few days in 
the co. Wicklow, where I can read, &c, incessantly. 
As you saw, I passed my exam, successfully — only 
nine candidates were in, and three were stopped. I 
made a speech the night before the exam., which was 
perhaps rather an audacious proceeding. I want 
you very much to go with me to Belgium, Switzer- 
land, and Italy. If you prefer any other countries, 
I shall be very happy to go to them (provided there 
are no long sea voyages). I was thinking of going in 



22 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the early part of June, but can easily put it off if it 
suits you. ... I know you will never go abroad by 
yourself, and for my part my enjoyment would be 
greatly enhanced if you were to go.' 

'The Religious Tendencies of the Age' came out 
anonymously about this time. 

' Since you say, much to my astonishment,' he wrote 
to Mr. K. Chetwode in June 1860, 'that you are 
curious about my book, I send it you. It is an attempt 
to analyse and develop certain modes of thought 
pervading our present theological literature. Heaven 
only knows whether it will arrive at Woodbrook. To 
write a book requires some energy, but to pack it 
for the book post quite transcends my capacities. . . . 
I mean to go to Salt Hill next Wednesday and to 
remain at all events till after the ensuing Wednesday, 
when the Historical closes.' 

'The Religious Tendencies of the Age,' which has 
been long out of print, included chapters on Private 
Judgment, the Church of Rome, High Churchism, 
Latitudinarianism, Practical Christianity, and the 
Signs of the Times. The book already showed that 
remarkable detachment, that power of throwing him- 
self into various modes of thought, which enabled 
him always to see the merits of each point of view. 
He describes with an equally sympathetic insight the 
place the Virgin Mary holds in the loftiest conceptions 
of the Roman Catholic worship and the ideal mission 
of the Protestant clergyman; and the object with which 
the book was written was to promote the spirit of 
charity and tolerance. It was in that respect a fit pre- 
cursor of 'The History of Rationalism.' 

'Do not imagine,' he says in the first chapter on 
Private Judgment, 'that you can understand a relig- 



'the religious tendencies' 23 

ious system because you have mastered its history 
and can explain its doctrines. Your mind should be 
so imbued with its spirit that you can realise the feel- 
ings of those who believe in it; you should endeavour 
to throw yourself into their position, to ascertain 
what doctrines they chiefly dwell upon, what points 
fascinate the most, what present the greatest diffi- 
culty to their minds. You should try to divest your- 
self for a time of your previous notions and to assume 
the feelings of others. You should read, not merely 
their standard theological works, but also their ordi- 
nary devotional manuals; you should haunt the vil- 
lage chapel and the village procession and endeavour 
in every way to enter into the feelings of the wor- 
shipper.' 

It was no wonder that some of his readers were 
puzzled. Writing afterwards to Mr. A. Booth from 
Rome he says: 

' I had given him [Arbuthnot *] a copy of my book, 
which he has been showing to his friends, apparently 
to their great bewilderment and astonishment. He 
is very complimentary to my style, which he calls " a 
splendid mixture of Newman and Macaulay," but a 
good deal shocked with some of my views. One " very 
choice friend" is so immensely impressed with them 
that he is engaged in a refutation of my chapter on 
Romanism; while another at first thought I was a 
Jesuit; as he read on he became more puzzled, and at 
last determined I had no certain religious belief. The 
Downshire Protestant pronounced it "one of the most 
provoking books we have ever read," and remarked that 
it contained "able," "eloquent," "thoughtful," "in- 
structive," "pithy," and "forcible" arguments against 
Infallibility and much nonsense in favour of Popery.' 

1 The Rev. R. K. Arbuthnot, afterwards Rector of Stratford, 
Essex. 



24 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Edward Lecky was twenty-two when he published 
this book, and he left college soon after, having taken 
his B.A. degree the previous year. His future was 
unsettled, for he was then gradually coming to the 
conclusion that he was not suited to a clerical life; 
and as there was nothing to keep him in Ireland, 
he went to the Continent and led for some years a 
nomadic existence, returning at intervals. While 
writing the ' Religious Tendencies ' he had been collect- 
ing materials for the ' Leaders of Public Opinion,' 
which he was writing when he started on his travels. 

During the years that follow he kept up an assidu- 
ous correspondence with Mr. Arthur Booth; and as 
this is the chief material for that period of his life 
some extracts from the letters will be given, which 
will enable one to follow him both in his travels and 
in his intellectual progress. He began by going to 
France, seeing pictures and cathedrals, and then pro- 
ceeded to Switzerland. His mind was still very full 
of the subject of theology, and in a letter dated Au- 
gust 10, from the top of the Rigi, he says: 

'The evidences of Christianity are irresistible. . . . 
I believe that it is a man's duty to prove his creed 
... to seek for truth reverently, humbly, sincerely 
praying for the guidance of the enlightening Spirit 
and seeking by good works the fulfilment of the prom- 
ise, " He that doeth the will of My Father shall know 
the doctrine, whether it be of God." I believe that 
he who does so may commit himself fearlessly into the 
Almighty's hands, having done his part, and I believe 
that this is the belief generally held by Christian men.' 

At Lucerne he found his college friend Mr. Snagge, 
who has described the meeting, 1 and they afterwards 



1 In the Academy and Literature, October 31, 1903. 




WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

From a Photograph of a Group of Members of the Historical Society, 

Trinity College, Dublin, 1860 



TKAVELS IN ITALY 25 

saw together the Oberammergau Passion play, which 
so impressed him by its beauty, solemnity, and the 
reverential spirit in which it was acted that eleven 
years afterward, when it was given again, he returned 
there with his wife. The strong religious element 
in Bavaria and the Tyrol — the roads ' fringed with 
crucifixes and with so many saints with the conven- 
tional saint look ' — was somewhat oppressive to 
him. ' It is almost a relief to get into a more secular 
country, and almost consoling to reflect that as I 
approach the Pope the religious element will prob- 
ably wane still more.' He was all his life a great lover 
of art, especially of painting, and he now studied each 
painter in the various Italian towns where his pictures 
could be seen to most advantage. The relation of 
Italian art to the religious life of the people was after- 
wards treated by him in one of the chapters of the 
'History of Rationalism.' He was also enthusiastic 
about good acting, and wrote from Florence, Novem- 
ber 18, 1860: 

' At Milan I came in for Ristori, who is now, I sup- 
pose, at Paris, and whom I admire most intensely. 
She is not, I think, at all pathetic; but for power, for 
passion, for transition from one feeling to another, 
and for representing the simultaneous working of 
opposite passions, I never saw anyone approaching 
her. I only saw her twice — not enough to drink 
in the full spirit of her powers — but she has been 
haunting me ever since. There is scarcely anything 
that I admire so much as a really great actor, scarcely 
anything I should so like to be.' 

He was enchanted with Florence, and went on to 
Rome, stopping on the way a few days at Perugia, 
where he was struck with the number of churches and 



26 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

convents : ' Only think of the result of it all being that 
the people poured boiling water out of the windows 
on the Pope's soldiers.' Rome at that time had still 
all the picturesque features of ecclesiastical costume 
and ceremonial, which disappeared to a great extent 
with the temporal power, and which those who, like 
Lecky, revisited it subsequently could not help re- 
gretting. 

He remained some time in Rome, making himself 
familiar with the various periods of art — chiefly 
early Christian and Renaissance — and reading and 
writing at the same time. ' I owe a good many of my 
ideas to Michelet,' he wrote. ' Quinet, whom Miche- 
elet puffs, is, I think, a humbug, and Guizot is very 
dull. Lamartine is sometimes beautiful (he draws 
characters better than perhaps any living writer), 
but egotistical and over-sentimental. Victor Hugo 
is, I think, the greatest poet and dramatist living.' 
'At present my writing gets on very slowly, but still 
gets on.' He was not, however, very pleased with the 
result of his first book, for, in answer to a suggestion 
that he should follow a literary career, he replied from 
Rome, January 26, 1861, that there was a trifling 
obstacle to his adopting it, as he had not the faculty 
of getting any readers. 

While he was in Rome news came of the fall of 
Gaeta. He writes from Naples, March 11, 1861: 

'The Pope went to pay a visit to the ex-King to 
express his deep sorrow at the event. The people 
assembled in an immense crowd in the Corso (which 
they partially illuminated) to express their joy, and 
I prepared to go at once to the said fortress. I was 
there just a week, or a week and a day, after the sur- 
render. Most of the houses have great holes about 
four feet square, made by the shells, and the whole 



TRAVELS IN ITALY 27 

of a bare hill is literally ploughed up with them. It 
is scarcely possible to walk a second without coming 
on a piece of one, many having buried themselves deep 
in the ground, which they have torn up all round them. 
Others have shattered the rocks, others have made 
great ragged holes in the fortifications. Quantities 
of shells are still lying about unexploded. I was 
walking in a very lonely, out-of-the-way part of the 
fortress when I was startled by an explosion, and, 
looking round, saw a tall, thick column of smoke 
rising within a few yards of me. I found that a group 
of little boys had been suspiciously hammering at 
one of these shells, which had, of course, gone off. 
They came rushing away, screaming with terror and 
perfectly black with smoke, the faces of one or two 
badly burnt, those of one or two others bleeding, the 
clothes of one or two smoking and reduced to a black 
powder. I helped them to pull off said clothes, and 
they then ran as quickly as they could to the town.' 

He watched with keen interest the struggle for free- 
dom and unity in Italy, and his feelings are best 
described in a passage he wrote more than thirty years 
after: 

'It was one of the most genuine of national move- 
ments, and very few who were young men when it 
took place, still fewer of those who, like the writer 
of these lines, then lived much in Italy, can have failed 
to catch the enthusiasm which it inspired. . . . The 
mingled associations of a glorious past and of a noble 
present, the genuine and disinterested enthusiasm 
that so visibly pervaded the great mass of the Italian 
people, the genius of Cavour, the romantic character 
and career of Garibaldi, and the inexpressible charm 
and loveliness of the land which was now rising into 
the dignity of nationhood, all contributed to make 
the Italian movement unlike any other of our time. 
It was the one moment of nineteenth-century history 



28 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

when politics assumed something of the character of 
poetry.' * 

He returned to Ireland about May 1861, and stayed 
for some time with his relations at 5 Belgrave Square, 
Monkstown, where they were at that time living. He 
writes to Mr. (the late Judge) Addison: 'I had an 
admirable passage, was enchanted with the new 
boats, and so triumphantly well that I could even read 
a little Theodore Parker on board.' He was then 
much engrossed in Buckle, of which the second vol- 
ume had just come out, and he says in a subsequent 
letter to the same correspondent: 

' I wish you would read Buckle's " History of Civil- 
isation"; it is, I think, one of the most interesting 
books and the very best history I have ever read. I 
have gone over nearly all of it several times, and each 
time with increasing admiration and amazement. I 
am convinced he will one day be regarded as one of 
the greatest men England has ever produced. The 
second volume is, I think, even better than the first. 
. . . For myself I was greatly flattered by finding 
that Mr. B. has adopted some rather uncommon views 
that I had myself independently worked out.' 

Though he always retained his early admiration 
for Buckle, his opinions about Buckle's theories were 
greatly modified afterwards. He had at this time 
also been diligently reading the Fathers with that 
unbiassed mind which he brought to bear on all sub- 
jects, and he found them sometimes more curious than 
edifying. 

1 ' The glamour has now dubious elements that mingled 

faded,' he added, 'and look- with it' {Democracy and Lib- 

ing back upon the past we erty, cabinet edition, i. pp. 

can more calmly judge the 490 sqq.). 



'leaders of public opinion' 29 

To Mr. Arthur Booth he wrote that he 'was deep 
in Utilitarian philosophy, Jeremy Bentham, Helve- 
tius, &c., with a parallel course of Irish biographies, 
Dr. Doyle, Lady Morgan, and Dermody, not to speak of 
innumerable works of a miscellaneous character.' He 
was also very busy correcting the proofs of the ' Leaders 
of Public Opinion in Ireland,' which came out anony- 
mously in July 1861. He writes on the 24th of that 
month: ' My book was published a few days ago. I do 
not know that I have much to say about it, except 
that I fear that I can't write biography in the least.' 

When he republished this book in 1903 in a new 
form he said about this early production: 

' Public opinion on Irish history at that time hardly 
existed. Scarcely anything of real value on the sub- 
ject had recently appeared, and my own little book 
showed only too clearly the crudity and exaggeration 
of a writer in his twenty-third year. At all events, 
it fell absolutely dead. With the exception of Mr. 
O'Neill Daunt, who wrote a kindly review of it in a 
Cork newspaper and who was good enough to predict 
for its author some future in literature, I do not know 
that it impressed anyone.' 

Someone else, however, appears to have been struck 
with it. Dr. Alexander (now Archbishop of Armagh) 
showed that clearness of judgment and insight which 
are among the great qualities that marked him out 
for the position he holds in Ireland. He writes that 
many years ago, when he spent a month or two at 
Bagneres, Lord Carnwath, who was living there, and 
whom he used to see constantly, one day put into his 
hands what he supposed to be Mr. Lecky's first book, 
the lives of some great Irishmen. 'I returned it 
afterwards to Lord C, and told him that my con vie- 



30 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

tion was that Mr. Lecky was likely to become one of 
the greatest historians of the age.' 

If the opinions expressed in it were in some respects 
immature, and the style more ornate than Lecky 
afterwards approved of, some parts were thought 
not unworthy of being retained in the later editions, 
which were to a great extent rewritten. To those 
who have read the ' Leaders,' whether in their earlier 
or later form, the tomb of Grattan in Westminster 
Abbey can scarcely fail to recall the striking final 
passage in the essay on that great orator. 



CHAPTER II 

1861-1867. 

First visit to Spain — He decides not to take Orders — Begins 
the ' History of Rationalism ' — Naples — Monkstown — ■ 
Italy — Bagneres — Chapters on the Declining Sense of the 
Miraculous — Pyrenees — Second visit to Spain — Reads in 
foreign libraries — Views about a profession — Lecture at 
Portarlington — Publication of the ' Rationalism ' — Re- 
views — London Society — Visit to tenants — Venice — 
Spezzia — Meets Mr. Lever — Bagneres — Montreux — ■ Dr. 
Newman — Begins the ' History of European Morals ' — 
Literary methods. 

After the publication of the 'Leaders' Lecky went 
abroad again, although, as he wrote to Mr. Addison 
before starting, he had 'arrived at that stage when 
the enthusiasm for travelling has passed, with its 
novelty, and when it requires some exertion to plunge 
into space.' 

(To Mr. A. Booth.) ' Pau: September 11, 1861. — I 
have been for the last four or five weeks wandering 
all over the Pyrenees with a volume of Spinoza and 
a treatise on Germany in my pocket, getting exceed- 
ingly enthusiastic about the scenery and exceedingly 
perplexed about the difference between Hegel and 
Schelling and about the nature of the Alexandrian 
Trinity. 

' My book was in some respects difficult to write, for 
biography is not in my line, and the material for the 
life of Flood was so exceedingly scanty, and for 
the fife of O'Connell so exceedingly bad, that it was 
far from easy to make anything out of them. I 

31 



32 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

wanted to embody in the whole series some theories 
of mine about the relation of patriotism to sectari- 
anism (which I have since found much better ex- 
pressed in Mr. Buckle), and to make a collection of 
detached sentences from Grattan's speeches, which I 
admire greatly. Please don't let my book get known 
in T.C.D.' 

His pleasure in travelling had reasserted itself, for 
he says: 'Next to reading, I am inclined to think 
travelling is nearly the pleasantest thing going.' He 
kept this taste all his life, though he disliked sea voy- 
ages and long journeys without interruption. He 
went to Spain, and wrote on October 9, 1861, from 
Madrid: 

'I have been now for some time in Spain and am 
getting a good deal into the way of it. There is a 
great deal to be seen, more beautiful Gothic architec- 
ture I think, than, and nearly as much beautiful 
sculpture as, in any country I know, an exceedingly 
quaint, curious people, and towns with very pretty 
walks about them, where the Spanish ladies peripateti- 
cise in the most killing manner, with their graceful 
mantillas and their never-ceasing fans. It is also re- 
freshing in this age of scepticism and Mr. Buckle to 
see a people with such uncommonly good theological 
digestions. The number of miraculous images is quite 
bewildering. One crucifix at Burgos (carved, it ap- 
pears, by Nicodemus) is said 'to have, among other 
feats, raised ten men from the dead, and its beard, 
which is of real hair, used once regularly to grow and 
to be cut.' 

At the same time, in no other country had he 'seen 
priests, nuns, and inquisitors habitually ridiculed on 
the stage. They are usually represented as hypo- 
crites, as misers, or as making love to one another.' 



TRAVELS IN SPAIN 33 

'The devotion of the Court is said to be the great 
strength of Catholicism in Spain. A large section of 
the Press is ultra-liberal. There are an immense 
number of enthusiastic admirers of Garibaldi, Victor 
Emmanuel, and numbers who oppose the temporal 
power of the Pope and reiterate the old charge that 
the tone of his allocutions is not quite apostolical. 
Individually I think they are quite wrong; (you remem- 
ber the first Papal allocution on record — " Then began 
Peter to curse and to swear ") — but still the exist- 
ence of the feeling in Spain is a striking sign of the 
times. The acting in Spain is, I think, better, as a 
general rule, than in any country in which I have 
been. The most popular things are comic operas, 
about the most amusing and best got up I have ever 
seen. Amusement, in fact, bears, I should think, a 
larger proportion to business in Spain than in any 
other European country.' 

He remained in Spain nine weeks, and was delighted 
with the people and towns, but found that one has 
to endure every possible discomfort. ' Diligence jour- 
neys of frightful length and sometimes along roads 
much like ploughed fields; the impossibility of sleep- 
ing as a general rule all night; the impossibility of 
getting many things which are almost necessary to 
civilised existence, an amount of staring that is utterly 
annihilating, and very great language difficulties.' 

During the travelling in Spain he used sometimes 
not to speak to anyone for days, but solitude never 
made him feel lonely or depressed; indeed, he had 
loved it from boyhood, and acquired so much the 
habit of it that it remained for him a necessity through 
life to spend several hours of the day alone; and he 
never could do any real work unless he was abso- 
lutely undisturbed. He returned to Italy, where he 
found the diligence-travelling in midwinter also some- 
4 



34 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

what trying. Writing from Florence, January 1862, 
he says* 

'Since I wrote I remained for about a month at 
Nice, where it was midsummer, and thence went to 
Bologna, where the snow was several inches deep. 

' On the whole, I must confess it is not pleasant 
starting at 4 a.m. in deep snow in a cold diligence for 
an eighteen hours' journey across the dreariest moun- 
tain passes (in the Apennines) and through a brigand 
country. It almost makes one for a short time incline 
to the absurd heresy that it would be better to stop 
at home. I confess to getting sometimes so tired by 
the 'diligence that the brigands would be rather a 
relief than otherwise, and I cannot say that I get as 
frightened about them as do wise and sober-minded 
people. In Spain, where everybody goes armed, I 
got a pair of pistols, but feeling quite certain that I 
should blow myself up I have never invested in any 
gunpowder.' 

His enthusiasm about Buckle had somewhat toned 
down. 'Buckle is, I think, a very wonderful man, 
but has taken, of course, only one aspect of things, 
and has borrowed immensely from Montesquieu.' 

He had now definitely decided not to go into the 
Church, and did not see his way to any other pro- 
fession. 

'Florence: January 31, 1862. — I don't go into the 
Army because I would just as soon commit suicide 
at once, and I have a brother in it. The only other 
thing that I know of is the Bar, but I hate law. As I 
have no application and no legal interest, I should 
probably remain ten years without getting one brief. 
I should then hate the duty of doing people's quarrels 
for them, and the very highest position for a lawyer 
— Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench — would, I 
should think, be intolerable. Being, as you say, mad, 



BEGINS 'HISTORY OF RATIONALISM' 35 

the only two things I should the least care for are a 
seat in Parliament or a position as an author. The 
first I have not the smallest chance of ever getting, 
not having a particle of interest, not being at all 
rich, and not agreeing with a dozen people in the 
community. As a writer I have failed so egregiously, 
hopelessly, and utterly that I have lost almost every 
particle of hope and confidence I ever possessed. . . . 
An idle life is all very well for people of the dining- 
out class, but I have no patience for that kind of 
life — and, besides, such people are denounced in 
Scripture as putting their talents in a napkin — or 
for those who have (or can buy) great country places 
and take to farming — though these, again, I have 
always maintained to be represented by Nebuchad- 
nezzar becoming a beast and eating grass.' 

His thoughts, however, soon cleared; new vistas 
opened before him of unexplored historical investiga- 
tion, and he began the ' History of Rationalism.' 

'It is quite impossible,' he wrote from Naples, 
March 16, 1862, 'to study theology to any good pur- 
pose if you do not at the same time study history. 
Religious opinions grow out of different states of soci- 
ety, reflect their civilisation, are altogether moulded 
and coloured by their modes of thought. You will 
perhaps think it a curious thing to say, but I am 
convinced that scarcely anything throws so much light 
on theology as a subject which, though I think one 
of the most curious in the whole scope of literature, 
is amongst the least attended to — the history of 
witchcraft.' 

He had received some encouragement in the shape 
of an appreciative review of his ' Leaders.' 

' I got the other day a long and extremely flattering 
review of my "Leaders of Public Opinion" in the 
Cork Examiner (I believe Macguire's paper) from the 



36 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Young Ireland and Roman Catholic point of view. 
The reviewer says: "The author conceals his name, 
but we are inclined to think from internal evidence 
that he is connected with T.C.D. Perhaps he is one 
of that patriotic band who in 1860 introduced the 
question of the Union into the Historical Debating 
Society.'" 

He remained some five or six weeks at Naples, and, 
in spite of his feeling ill part of the time, it was to him 
a perfect Paradise. ' An absolute monomania, an 
infatuation perfectly childish and insane,' as he 
afterwards wrote. He remembered being just able 
to hobble to the Villa Reale, and there most delib- 
erately coming to the conclusion that it was better 
to be ill at Naples than to be well anywhere else. 'I 
have often thought that death would lose half its 
bitterness on the cliff of Sorrento with that glorious 
sea below.' He spent Easter in Rome, and returned 
to Monkstown, Ireland, where he passed the summer 
with his relations, and had a few copies printed of 
' Angelina,' which he afterwards published in his poems 
as ' A Tale of Modern Italy.' In the autumn of that 
year Lord and Lady Carnwath settled with their 
family at Bagneres de Bigorre, where Edward Lecky 
became henceforth a frequent visitor. 

He had been writing a treatise on 'The declining 
sense of the Miraculous,' which was first printed sep- 
arately and afterwards formed the first two chapters 
of the 'History of Rationalism.' He went in the 
autumn to the Lake of Como, travelling through all 
the glorious scenery of the Via Mala and the Splugen, 
which he saw for the first time. 

1 Nice: November 1, 1862. — I have been for a long 
time at Genoa in a state of the most supreme felicity, 
reading and writing most of the day and walking half 



'declining sense of the miraculous' 37 

the night by moonlight, through the streets of marble 
palaces, or going to see Ristori, who has been com- 
mitting nightly murders there with a ferocity that is 
truly diabolical. After all, it is an open question 
whether one should go to Italy, for it spoils one for 
all the rest of the world. 

' I am hard at work, and have been for a long time, 
on an enormous book which, as it seems to me, will 
ultimately comprise almost every conceivable sub- 
ject. It is on the laws of the rise and fall of specu- 
lative opinions. . . . This subject I am examining 
historically and at length. . . . The chapters I read 
you at Monkstown form part of it. I have written 
a great deal more since. Heaven only knows how 
much I have still to write. Although I have long been 
reading incessantly with a view to it, I am, as you will 
easily imagine, still rather appalled at the amount of 
knowledge required, and the many vistas that open as 
I proceed seem endless.' 

He spent the winter with his family as Bagneres 
de Bigorre, with the exception of a few weeks at Pau, 
whence he writes (January 10, 1863) : 

'I have been gathering together a large and rare 
library of old Latin and French books on witchcraft, 
written by the Inquisitors of the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries. Having been completely buried in 
the subject and (as one usually is when exploring 
quite unknown and out-of-the-way departments of 
literature) supremely happy in the research, having 
duly devoured some eighteen or twenty books on the 
subject, I came here to take a course of a volume a 
day reading for a few weeks in the circulating library. 
I am waiting with great impatience for a treatise on 
the Devil by Psellus (a Byzantine author of the 
eleventh century), having got which, I mean to go to 
a little village in the mountains till I have mastered 
it and a medical treatise by Cabanis which I have 
taken to/ 



38 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'Those who try to do their duty find in the effort 
its own reward; it dispels every fear, it dispenses with 
every hope. All cannot be great teachers or great 
philanthropists, but all, if they would honestly and 
with self-sacrifice labour to do so, could do something 
in the two great fields of duty in alleviating sorrow 
or in correcting error. Few, very few, do so from a 
mere sense of duty, and therefore these fields are gen- 
erally abandoned to those who make them a profes- 
sion, a mere means of money-making; but those who 
are the exceptions never regret their career.' 

He remained a long time at Paris, having discovered 
that anyone who likes may read in the great library 
in the Rue Richelieu, and he made up some of the 
out-of-the-way art questions he was writing about, 
and also went three times to hear Pere Felix, who 
was then said to be the greatest preacher in the 
world, 'an extremely eloquent man, perfect rhetoric 
flowing with unbroken rapidity from the beginning 
to the end, very sarcastic, admirable action,' but the 
substance was not equal to the form. 

He went to Ireland in April, took his M.A. degree, 
printed the 'Declining Sense of the Miraculous,' and 
returned to Paris, where he read much in the Biblio- 
theque Imperiale, and got, as he always did, ' enthu- 
siastic about the charms of France.' He next writes 
from Bagneres de Luchon (August 19, 1863): 

'The Pyrenees have been, till within a day or two, 
so hot that it is scarcely possible to exist with one's 
clothes on; and the garrulity of French ladies, the 
ceaseless cracking of whips, barking of dogs, and other 
atrocious sounds make me perfectly miserable, espe- 
cially as I am trying vainly to understand the theol- 
ogy of the Gnostics and the philosophy of Scotus 
Erigena. 



PYRENEES 39 

Bagneres de Bigorre, where he spent the autumn 
with his relations, had become a favourite resort of 
his. It had the advantage of an almost perfect cli- 
mate at that time of year, and of a very good public 
library, the deputy of the town, who was a great 
antiquarian, having given his books to it. As scarcely 
anyone frequented this library, Lecky found it very 
agreeable, and followed up a good many lines of 
obscure reading, and he also wrote a good deal. 

Many years afterwards — in 1885 — he gave Mr. 
Booth, in a letter, some reminiscences of the Pyrenees 
in those days: 

' I know them [the Pyrenees] extremely well, as my 
mother lived for several years at Bagneres de Bigorre, 
where soon after leaving college I had to go for part 
of every year. The railway, however, had then only 
got to Bagneres. Aregles, was then a very pretty 
but very dull little village, with a curious and beauti- 
fully situated church dedicated to St. Savin, who 
loved God so much that when he put a candle to his 
breast it took fire, as is shown by a picture there. 
There is also a very curious church, Templar, castel- 
lated, and half a fortress, with a separate entrance and 
benitier for the cagots (or accursed race) at Luz not 
far off. All that country is lovely, and the roads 
from St. Sauveur to Gavarnie, and in another direc- 
tion to Bagneres de Luchon, are, I think, about as 
beautiful as anything I have ever seen. The road 
from Luz to Cauterets, is also charming. I knew 
Lourdes before the apparition, when it was one of the 
most neglected places in the Pyrenees, and also in the 
years after the apparition, when it had little more 
than a local reputation. It used to be said that the 
poor people when they were ill went to the miracu- 
lous water of Lourdes, but the priests to the mineral 
waters at Bagneres; and it was so little known that 
when I met Dean Stanley in the Pyrenees I was the 



40 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

first person who told him of its existence. Afterwards 
the Legitimists took it up, and it soon attained its 
present popularity.' 

Lecky's next move was another journey to Spain. 

Madrid: December 6. — 'To go from France to Spain 
is travelling not merely through space, but also through 
time into another age of civilisation. ... I have 
been indulging in an immense amount of literary 
vagabondage, and find the public libraries very curi- 
ous. The librarians look upon me as an inexplicable 
phenomenon, and their eyes grow perfectly circular 
at the names of the books I ask for; but they are very 
obliging, and I have mastered an immense number 
of curious old Latin books by Spanish and other 
theologians I had never heard of before.' 

After visiting Granada, Malaga, Cadiz, Seville, To- 
ledo, and Madrid, he went to Barcelona, which he 
thought at that time the only really pleasant town in 
Spain, and one of the pleasantest in the world. There 
he 

'stopped for a long time reading in a truly glorious 
public library (formed from those of suppressed mon- 
asteries) the original works on the Inquisition, &c, 
&c. The promenades were all full of beautiful (oh! 
such beautiful) people till ten o'clock at night; fires 
were undreamed of; all the colouring was of midsum- 
mer. I left it just before Christmas — spent three 
weeks at the libraries of Montpellier, Avignon, and 
Toulon.' 

He proceeded via the Corniche to Florence and 

Rome, and writes from Sorrento: 

' Nothing particular was going on in Rome except 
assassinations — except, indeed, that Dupanloup of 
Orleans was preaching every day to an enormous 



VIEWS ABOUT A PROFESSION 41 

congregation in the "Gesu." He preaches like a 
charge of cavalry, very fiery, but sometimes very 
touchingly, and in an odd familiar, discursive (John 
Greggish) style.' 

He returned to Rome at the end of April and ' archseol- 
ogised' a good deal, enjoying the absence of tourists, 
who had now mostly fled. Part of the summer was 
spent in Switzerland, and on the way to Bagneres he 
wrote from Nimes, August 14, 1864: 

' To say the truth, I have been absorbing oceans of 
political economy, and have got so dreadfully shocked 
and frightened by all its denunciations of " unproduc- 
tive consumers" and "luxury" and all the rest of it 
that I feel perfectly disreputable whenever I meet 
anyone I know who is in a profession, and shrink with 
perfect horror from all who regard me as an idler. . . . 
So I mean to publish a long book with my name. 
Adam Smith, indeed, considers authors in the un- 
productive classes, but J. B. Say and most modern 
economists say they are "immaterial producers," so I 
suppose when known to belong to that class I shall be 
able without too much shame and trepidation to en- 
counter the legal ex-historicals of the Four Courts.' 

He feels that, having now a large library, he must 
eventually settle down in London; 

' that is to say, if I could get a patent of respectability 
as an "immaterial producer." I suppose, on the 
whole, I have wandered a long way from Bagneres 
to Cadiz, from Cadiz to Naples, and from Naples back 
through Switzerland to Bagneres, but somehow or 
another I have scarcely the sense of motion, burying 
myself so quickly in libraries, and then a night in a 
locomotive armchair takes one so very far. . . . The 
French are at present discussing with terrific energy 
the question whether they are mind or matter, and 



42 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

(under the guidance of Renan, Littre, and Taine) are 
coming very rapidly to the conclusion that they are 
the latter.' 

On a recent bereavement his correspondent had 
suffered he writes at this time: 

Cauterets: September 8, 1864. — ' After all, that hope 
of immortality which alone can light up the darkness 
of the grave is not the peculiar offspring of any creed, or 
even the result of any particular argument, but is rather 
an instinct implanted in our nature, and has been the 
sure hope and consolation of the best and wisest men 
of all ages and religions.' 

And in the same letter he refers again to the non- 
producer theory: 'I suspect there is a good deal of 
delusion about going into professions on philanthropic 
grounds. It commonly means merely that a rich 
man, through his exceeding love of his species, appro- 
priates a professional income which would otherwise 
belong to a poorer man.' He was now preparing to 
go to London with the manuscript of the ' Rational- 
ism.' 

' I look upon my stay here with positive consterna- 
tion, for I want to try and get a decent publisher to 
take possession of my scribblings, and I have the 
vaguest notions how to set about it or how long I 
shall be delayed. When I succeed I shall go to Salt 
Hill and correct proof-sheets. ... I am at present 
putting the final touches to my book at a tiny little 
town, 3,200 feet above the sea, and surrounded by 
the most glorious mountains, seven or eight thou- 
sand feet high.' 

He succeeded in finding a publisher, Messrs. Long- 
mans, with whom from that moment his relations 
were always very amicable. He spent part of the 



LECTURE ON EARLY CHRISTIAN ART 43 

winter at Kingstown, correcting the proof-sheets of 
the 'History of Rationalism' 'having sometimes 
fifteen or sixteen at once, which, as each proof con- 
sists of sixteen pages, and as correction implies read- 
ing it over three or four times and verifying many 
quotations, is no joke.' 

In January 1865 he was asked to give a lecture on 
' Early Christian Art ' at Portarlington to an audience 
of young ladies, which greatly alarmed him, as he 
did not know how that 'dangerous class' should be 
addressed, as he had not spoken since the Historical, 
and as he was aware that his audience knew nothing 
whatever on the subject. 

Kingstown, February 1, 1865. — 'My lecture duly 
went off on Saturday. I was exceedingly frightened 
at the prospect, and went specially to the Four Courts 
to consult Plunket as to how one ought to address 
young ladies, but he could only tell me to trust to 
instinct; besides, not having spoken once for three 
years, I questioned whether my power remained. We 
had a very large audience. The sublimity of J. P.'s 
flanked the desk, and ferocious Catholics and ferocious 
Protestants, like the wolves and lambs in the Millen- 
nium, were harmonised on the benches. I found at 
the beginning that a quiet conversational tone was 
quite out of my power, so I went off in the high- 
pressure "Historical" style, and went on for about 
fifty-five minutes. The Leinster Express reporters 
despairingly said it was impossible to keep pace with 
my delivery, so I had, to my disgust, to write a digest. 
I found next day a short notice in the Irish Times 
complimenting me on the "language of exquisite 
simplicity" with which I clothed my ideas, giving 
very elaborately all my Christian names and only 
omitting my surname. Alas! such is fame. I need 
scarcely say I did not write to correct the mistake.' 



44 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The ' History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit 
of Rationalism in Europe' was published in January 
1865, and in sending a copy to his uncle, Mr. Godfrey 
Tallents, he wrote: 

'Its opinions, I fear, are not your opinions, and its 
subjects would scarcely interest you. Yet such is 
human, or at least author, nature that I could not help 
wishing that what represented a large measure of my 
thoughts and feelings should find some place at New- 
ark. I have been leading for some time past such a 
half vagabond, half bookworm existence, diving into 
half the libraries of Europe and breaking unhappy 
porters' backs with boxes of books, and have at the 
same time been so much alone, that writing became 
almost a necessary vent; but this is the first time that 
I ventured to do it in my own name. For the last 
three months I have been in an hotel in Ireland, 
mainly occupied with proof-sheets; to-morrow I hope 
to cross to France and in a few days to be at Nice, 
there to remain all February and a little of March.' 

In passing through London, he saw Mr. Longman, 
who, he writes to Mr. Booth, 

'was pleased to be very encouraging, saying he had 
shown it to several people, who appeared all to have 
been a good deal struck with it. Two, it seems, have 
been particularly emphatic in their eulogies — Mr. 
Reeve, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, and Froude, 
who instantly wanted to put me down as a contrib- 
utor to Fraser, which I don't at present mean to 
become.' 

In February 1865 Mr. Thomas Longman wrote to 
him: 

'It will be gratifying to you to know that there is 
but one opinion amongst the highest class of reading 
and thinking men on the distinguished merits of your 



THE 'HISTORY OF RATIONALISM* 45 

book. I shall enclose you a letter I have received 
from the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think you will be 
pleased to read it. This, however, is only one of the 
many opinions that have come before me, all being in 
the highest terms of commendation, and I have 
reason to know that the book has become a subject 
of conversation in a large circle of the most distin- 
guished literary men in London, many of whom have 
expressed their desire to make your personal ac- 
quaintance.' 

Dean Milman said in his letter: 

'I have read Mr. Lecky's book with great pleasure 
and admiration. On its literary merits I think that I 
can speak without any bias, and on its literary merits 
I should pass a very favourable judgment. The range 
of reading is most extensive. He has evidently prof- 
ited largely by foreign libraries. In this respect he 
approaches, if he does not equal, Buckle; but as to his 
mind Buckle, after all, was a bit of a bigot. Mr. 
Lecky has much larger views and a far more dispas- 
sionate judgment. Buckle hated intolerance so much 
as to be blind, or nearly blind, to religion. Mr. Lecky 
pays all respect and gives due honour to religion, even 
as to its worldly influence. In some respects, on the 
other hand, my judgment may be somewhat warped. 
The book so completely reflects my own opinions — 
opinions which for many years I have been endeav- 
ouring to express at much disadvantage. It is the 
book which was wanted, especially wanted at the 
present time — one which if I had been younger I 
might have attempted to write, but which I rejoice to 
find has fallen into such able hands and has been 
taken up by a man fully qualified to do justice to it.' 

Dean Milman expressed a wish to make his acquaint- 
ance, and offered to send some corrections for the next 
edition : 



46 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'The said book has been a decided success/ Lecky 
wrote from Nice, St. Patrick's Day, 1865. "The only 
printed review I have seen is an exceedingly stupidly 

written one in the . Two copies have come 

to me, so I send you one, which may possibly amuse 
you; but Longman tells me that Mr. Reeve has written 
a review of me for next month's Edinburgh. It is 
very egotistical of me telling you all this, but you are 
the only person in the world who ever foretold that 
I might be anything but a dead failure in the literary 
world, so I thought it might interest you.' 

Bagneres de Bigorre: April 8. — ' The Spectator is 
mainly occupied with assailing my method, but is 
extremely eulogistic, and ends by recommending my 
book very warmly as likely to be especially invaluable 
to the clergy. An ex-Quaker gentleman in Dublin 
has also written to let off his very great enthusiasm, 
but he says the early Quakers were not worthy of 
Bedlam. Dr. Shaw had only got to the end of my 
witches when he found it necessary to write and say 
I was an honour to the University, and that he wanted 
to review me. The Dean of Emly 1 found my book 
discussed energetically at Oxford when there preach- 

1 Now Archbishop of Armagh. His judgment on the 'Ra- 
tionalism ' has been modified since, as the poem he wrote on the 
occasion of the unveiling of the statue at Trinity College, Dub- 
lin, shows: 

Champion of Reason, 'twas high joy for him 

To watch its early dawning not in vain 
First whitening on thought's window long time dim, 

Till all the morning flash 'd from every pane. 
Truth was more to him than a world beside — 
That one foundation did all else sustain. 

The poem appeared in the Times of May 11, 1906. 



THE 'HISTORY OF RATIONALISM' 47 

ing, but that it was evidently one no orthodox man 
could approve of. Happily my orthodoxy is quite 
safe under the broad brim of Dr. Milman's shovel 
hat, but I am so, so sick of writing. Were I only in 
the way of speaking, few things would give me greater 
pleasure than to throw pen, ink, and paper into the 
fire (not the ink, by the bye, for that might put it 
out) — dreary, frigid occupation.' 

Bagneres de Bigorre: June 1, 1865. — ' Longman told 
me about a week ago that only thirty-seven copies 
remained, and is rather in a hurry for the next edi- 
tion, but says the elections will suspend the sale of 
books. Longman threatens me with dinners (that 
inevitable consequence of succeeding in anything in 
England), and I think I shall stop in London ten days 
or a fortnight. It is very hot here and I have been 
very idle, scarcely writing a line. I have read, how- 
ever, a respectable amount, and very carefully revised 
my book for the second edition, correcting two or three 
inaccuracies in fact and two or three dozen inaccu- 
racies in composition, and adding a few lines.' 

He left his relations, and, having accepted a dinner 
invitation in London, hurried through Paris, and was 
in London early in June: 

' I can only free myself from the imputation of tem- 
porary insanity,' he wrote on July 13, 1865, ' by observ- 
ing that it was a literary dinner (at Longman's) 
and that my particular magnet was Froude. Froude 
is much younger-looking than I expected. He does 
not look more than forty, though he is, I fancy, six 
or seven years older. He is very agreeable, talks 
pictorially, something in the style of Wills, 1 and is 
particularly amusing. I have seen a good deal of 
him, for besides Longman's, he dined this evening at 

1 The Rev. Freeman Wills, a distinguished speaker at the 
Historical Society. 



48 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the " Literary Club/' to which I was invited (Walpole, 
M.P., Lord Kingsdown, the great lawyer, Reeve, and 
Newton, of the British Museum, were there), and as 
Froude sat next to me, and dinner lasted more than 
two and a half hours, we talked to no end.' 

An entry in Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff's diary 
may find a place here: 

June 16, 1865. — ' Dined with Lord Houghton, a 
large party given to introduce Lecky, whose ' History 
of Rationalism' is exciting great attention. There 
were present Grote, Sir Edmund Head, Sir Henry 
Holland, Murchison, Arthur Russell, Venables, and 
Higgins, better known as Jacob Omnium, &c.' 

He was now launched into society and formed many 
friendships which time only strengthened. It is not 
too much to say that the ' Rationalism ' made its mark 
on the Continent as well as in England. It was, as 
Dean Milman said, the book that was wanted, system- 
atising the currents of thought that pervaded the 
intellectual atmosphere. Among the many letters 
received after Lecky's death there was one that spe- 
cially alludes to this period: 

'The young people of this generation,' writes Lady 
Stanhope, 'owe him a special debt of gratitude for 
his " History of Rationalism." I can well remember 
how it focussed and classified the feelings which were 
everywhere in the air, and which in this work found 
their reason and their record. In these days of wide 
toleration the struggle caused by breaking down the 
trammels of prejudice and of narrow views is apt to 
be overlooked, and Mr. Lecky was emphatically the 
leader in many a righteous assault, and nobly to the 
end did he carry the torch of truth and of a just judg- 
ment.' 



THE 'HISTORY OF RATIONALISM' 49 

The title at first was somewhat of a deterrent to 
those who associated it with German biblical criti- 
cism, and men like Dean Milman and Sir Charles 
Lyell deplored that it should give rise to misappre- 
hension, although Dean Milman confessed that it 
would have been difficult to find a better one. Those 
who read it soon found that, far from there being any 
want of reverence for religion in Lecky's book, he 
showed how the spirit of progress going hand in hand 
with tolerance gradually eliminated the elements 
that were unworthy of true religion, often converting 
them into poetry, to quote his own words: 

'The religion of one age is often the poetry of the 
next. . . . The gods of heathenism were thus trans- 
lated from the sphere of religion to the sphere of poetry. 
The grotesque legends and the harsh doctrines of a 
superstitious faith are so explained away that they 
appear graceful myths foreshadowing and illustrating 
the conceptions of a brighter day. For a time they 
flicker upon the horizon with a softly beautiful light 
that enchants the poet and lends a charm to the new 
system with which they are made to blend, but at 
last this too fades away. Religious ideas die like the 
sun; their last rays, possessing little heat, are expended 
in creating beauty.' 1 

Twenty years after the publication of the ' Rational- 
ism' M. Albert Reville, the greatest French authority 
on the history of religions, said in a review of the 
book: 

' Le rationalisme dont M. Lecky raconte la formation 
et les victoires continues n'a rien de commun avec le 
nihilisme belliqueux et iconoclaste que Ton prend trop 
souvent aujourd'hui pour du liberalisme. Ce rational- 



History of Rationalism, cabinet edition, vol. i. pp. 260, 261. 
5 



50 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

isme est religieux et tout dispose a s'incliner devant 
les croyances religieuses dans la mesure ou elles favo- 
risent la moralite publique et privee, l'essor de l'esprit 
et le progres humain. . . . " L'Histoire du Rational- 
isme" de M. Lecky restera comme Tun des documents 
les plus instructifs de revolution religieuse et politique 
du monde moderne. . . .' 

The book has now stood the test of more than forty 
years, and its vitality has not been impaired. 'Its 
influence upon human thought/ writes Mr. Andrew 
White, 'has been not only powerful but in a high 
degree salutary.' The different way in which it is 
viewed at present by the same people who denounced 
it on its first appearance is a remarkable illustration 
of Lecky's own arguments. 

After some weeks of lionising he went to Ireland. 

(To Mr. Booth.) Salt Hill, Monkstown: September 
9. — 'My literary news is scanty: 221 copies of my 
book (second edition) issued from Longman's the first 
day. I have been a little knocked up, have been 
specially ordered not to read and think (those opera- 
tions being, Stokes * tells me, outrages upon the laws 
of nature), and desiring to be perfectly unintellectual 
I went to visit my friends, and have been for about 
three weeks wandering to and fro. I went, among 
other things, to visit (I am ashamed to say for the first 
time) some of my tenants, at the prospect of which 
I was considerably alarmed, for when one hardly 
knows the difference between a potato and a turnip 
it is not easy to be very imposing in conversation with 
farmers. However, I think that I acquitted myself 
satisfactorily, lamented the appearance of the potatoes, 
eulogised cows, did the cattle disease, and abused the 

1 A great Dublin physician. The Irish tradition is that in 
his day no one died in Dublin. 



REVIEWS OF THE 'RATIONALISM' 51 

Government for not stopping their importation (which 
they had not yet done).' 

Soon afterwards he went abroad again, to Holland 
and Germany, in some parts where he had not been 
before, and he returned to Dresden, attracted as he 
always was by the unique picture-gallery and the 
Madonna di San Sisto, which he had described after 
his first visit to Dresden with all the enthusiasm of 
a lover of art in the ' Religious Tendencies of the Age.' 
He went to Vienna, whence he writes: 

'A curious article that of the Westminster to be 
written by an Anglican clergyman, 1 was it not? The 
British Quarterly has opened rather heavy artillery 
upon me, but has not done me much harm. Another 
quarterly, the Journal of Sacred Literature, has also 
reviewed me at great length. The Dublin Review and 
the Anthropological (a review set up, I believe, by 
some scientific gentlemen who say they are monkeys) 
I have not seen, and I find Fitzjames Stephen has 
just perpetrated an article upon me which he has 
long been threatening in Fraser. An American author 
(a Mr. Hillard), who says I have made an epoch in 
his life, has been writing to me, and tells me that a 
New York publisher is going to reprint me.' 

The book was evidently making a stir in America. 
Mr. Ticknor (the historian of Spanish literature) wrote 
from Boston an enthusiastic letter expressing 'the 
pleasure and benefit' he had received from the book, 
and saying it was much read and by the most thought- 
ful people; that there were several copies in all the 
public libraries; that its circulation was fast increas- 
ing; and that, though in the rest of the country, where 
the old ideas were more tenacious, it might be less 



1 'Presbyter Anglicanus.' 



52 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

broadly accepted, it would do its work more or less 
wherever it went. Mr. Lea, 1 the historian of the 
Inquisition in sending him a volume of essays, wrote 
from Philadelphia, U.S.A.: 

' Your book is one which I think can scarcely fail to 
exercise influence on the direction and progress of 
thought, and I trust that you will follow it with others 
which may aid in the development of a school in which 
history may be taught as it should be. We have had 
enough annalists to chronicle political intrigues and 
military achievements; but that which constitutes 
the inner life of a people, and from which are to be 
drawn the lessons of the past that will guide us in the 
future, has hitherto been too much neglected. Your 
richly stored pages show how much there is to be 
learned when apparently insignificant facts are 
brought together from the most varied sources and 
made to reflect light upon each other.' 

He subsequently went to Venice and spent three 
weeks at Spezzia, where he met Mr. Lever. A letter 
written about this time to Mr. Booth completely 
disposes of the legend that as an undergraduate he 
did the honours of Trinity College to Charles Lever: 

Pisa: January 2, 1866. — ' Spezzia I was enchanted 
with. It is one of the most beautiful places I have 
ever seen, with innumerable walks and perfectly 
quiet, and the climate better than Nice. It was 
very empty, and I made the acquaintance there of, I 
think, one of the pleasantest people I have ever met — 
Charles Lever, alias Cornelius O'Dowd, who is Vice- 
Consul there and stopping in the hotel. He is so 
amiable, so modest about his writings, and at the 
same time one of the most charming talkers one could 

1 Mr. Lea first wrote to him every now and then through 
on this occasion, and con- subsequent years, but he and 
tinued to correspond with him Lecky never met. 



CHARLES LEVER 53 

possibly imagine, all sparkling with wit, brimful of the 
most ludicrous stories, which he tells to perfection, 
and pours out with a rapidity that is perfectly bewil- 
dering. He has been for the last forty years nearly 
always abroad, but still the torrent of his Irish recol- 
lections and imaginings is inexhaustible. He lives 
at Florence, where he is now, and where I hope soon 
to see him. He and his daughters are most marvel- 
lous swimmers. He says he and they once swam 
together en grande famille to a little town in the Gulf 
of Spezzia, two and a half hours' swim off. He was 
once wrecked with one of his daughters and a terrier 
dog five miles out at sea, but they managed, without 
any difficulty, to get safely to the nearest ship and to 
carry their dog with them. Another literary person 
I saw a little, though not much of, was Mrs. Somer- 
ville, authoress of a number of scientific books. She 
is, Mr. Lever says, eighty-six, and having just com- 
pleted correcting the proof-sheets of a book, the 
thought seems to have struck her that she might 
possibly some day die, so she resolved to make her 
will, which Mr. Lever and I had to witness. And I 
sincerely hope we did it right, which, considering that 
all three parties were literary, would be remarkable. 
The Miss Somervilles complain that they were once 
all left without money, because their mother and 
Mr. Lever had both to sign some cheques, and having 
begun to talk of something else they both forgot it, 
and sent the cheque, unsigned, to England; and that 
on another occasion, Mr. Lever duly witnessed a 
signature which Mrs. Somerville had never written. 
By dint of a long mountain walk every day I got quite 
strong again at Spezzia. Pray stop at Rome until 
the end of the month. You have nothing whatever 
to prevent it. I hope to be there on the 21st or 22nd. 
It is really a dreadful nuisance about the brigands en 
route and the assassins in Rome. Next year I sus- 
pect no one will be there. I want to read and write 



54 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

a little more here and, I think, at the Baths of Lucca, 
and to spend a few days at Florence (my address the 
poste restante there), and have not quite made up my 
mind how I shall go down to Rome, by land or sea.' 

'My book got into the third edition,' he wrote from 
Rome on April 22. ' The Times, as perhaps you saw, 
is of opinion that one of my principal objects was to 
advocate woman's suffrage. I am at heart somewhat 
miserable, partly through literary pains and sorrows, 
of which you know nothing, partly because my whole 
life is darkened by the dreary conciousness that I 
shall never, never succeed in getting lodgings in Lon- 
don out of the noise, and tolerably comfortable, and 
the awful prospect of the attempt I shall have to 
make is, at present, my habitual nightmare.' 

He wrote to his stepmother that he had one unfor- 
tunate monomania which put him in great difficulties : 
'I must get entirely and completely out of the noise 
of carriages, for I am perfectly unable to write except 
in absolute silence. I rather want to be in London 
for the sake of many people I care to know, and not 
very far from the B. Museum on account of the library. 
But if I cannot escape the noise I must go elsewhere.' 

He did not, however, intend to carry out this plan 
till the autumn. He stayed on in Rome, where he 
had many friends, and where he was interested to 
meet, among others, Mr. William Palmer, one of the 
early converts to Catholicism of the time of Newman, 
and one of the most learned men of the group. He 
afterwards went to Bagneres. 

Montreux: August 10. — 'I have been going through 
a six weeks' course of relations in the Pyrenees, and 
finally, wanting to get out of noises &c, came to 
Switzerland and have been moving from hotel to 
hotel along the Lake of Geneva. At Vevey, where I 



DR. NEWMAN 55 

was staying until driven away by a band, was no less 
a person than Dr. Newman. . . . Had I been more 
brazen I would have ventured to introduce myself, as 
I happen to know that he knows me in my disembodied 
state, 1 but I had not courage — besides, he did not 
look engaging, speaking to no one, rarely smiling, and 
on the whole looking very melancholy — a striking 
face, though, with a very large nose (bending about a 
good deal in different directions to economise space), 
very gentlemanly, . . . and a general look, till you 
observed closely, of an English clergyman. He was 

travelling with , whom, if I remember rightly, he 

puffs immensely in the "Apologia," who had a gen- 
eral look of being his keeper, beckoning him with his 
eyes when to leave the room, and who at tea kept his 
hat on and read a book, leaving poor Dr. N. very 
sadly gazing at the bottom of his teacup. They were 
only there, I am happy to say, two or three days, for 
I own it tantalised me exceedingly, there being no 
one (scarcely anyone, indeed) I should so much have 
liked to know. However, I thought of an Irish saint in 
"Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hibernise" who whenever 
(poor lady) she was in love used to put her feet in the 
fire in order that one fire might drive out another; 
and so, following her example, I got Buckle from the 
circulating library and always brought him down to 
tea. I have got so many books with me (nearly all 
since I left Rome) that I can scarcely move about. 

Lecky was not long before he began another book 
on a subject to which the 'Rationalism' had led up, 
the 'History of European Morals from Augustus to 
Charlemagne.' 

The following letter, written from Interlaken at 
this time (August 28, 1866), throws some light on his 
methods of work: 



1 Lecky had been told that Dr. Newman had been struck 
with the Rationalism. 



56 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'A book requires endless patience, for I at least 
rarely finish a chapter without finding it necessary 
to recast it thoroughly. There are also innumerable 
little difficulties of style, arrangement, and research, 
which no one but an author can know, and there 
falls upon one not infrequently an utter brain weari- 
ness, a despondency, which is very painful. But by long 
patience something really comes at the end. As far 
as my own experience goes, the chief motive of writ- 
ing seems to be that one has thought much, has crowds 
of arguments, tendencies, speculations, &c, floating, 
often half formed, through the mind, which it at last 
becomes almost necessary to rescue from a subjective 
to an objective state. To develop one's being to its 
full capacity is, perhaps, on the whole, the least vain 
thing in this vain world.' 

And in a letter written some time after he says: 
' Good writing is a very much harder thing than people 
who have never tried it imagine, and, as far as my 
experience goes, it is only attained by incessant 
cobbling, by retrenching, condensing, and recasting 
again and again what one has written.' 

There is a passage in the 'Religious Tendencies' 
which shows that from early times he had a high ideal 
of literary workmanship. Speaking of the passion 
of ambition in its loftiest sense and of its various 
outlets, he says: 

'Inspired by this passion, the orator or the writer 
abandons the lucrative paths of mediocrity to develop, 
amidst the discouragement of friends and the sneers 
of hostile critics, his peculiar talent, dedicating all 
his time and sacrificing all his pleasures to the attain- 
ment of this object, moulding and clarifying his sen- 
tences till he has made them nervous, flexible, and 
melodious, capable of conveying the most delicate mod- 
ulations of his thoughts — a faithful mirror of his mind.' 



LITERARY STYLE 57 

Being once asked a question on the subject, he 
wrote : 

'I have always cared much for style, and have 
endeavoured to improve my own by reading a great 
deal of the best English and French prose. In writ- 
ing, as in music, much of the perfection of style is a 
question of ear; but much also depends on the ideal 
the writer sets before himself. He ought, I think, to 
aim at the greatest possible simplicity and accuracy 
of expression, at vividness and force, at condensation. 
The last two heads will usually be found to blend; for 
condensation, when it is not attained at the sacrifice of 
clearness, is the great secret of force. I should say, 
from my own experience, that most improvements of 
style are of the nature either of condensation or of 
increased accuracy and delicacy of distinction.' 

He objected to the dryasdust method of some his- 
torians, who on principle exclude the picturesque 
from historic writing, but he still more objected to 
the tendency to be picturesque at the expense of 
truth. In a copy of an early edition of the ' Rational- 
ism' in his library the following lines were written by 
him on the title page: 

' Spirit of truth ! still further urge thy sway, 
Still further brighten our imperfect day; 
From every other shackle set us free, 
From every bond that is not knit by thee.' 

— Madan. 



CHAPTER III 

1867-1870. 

Settles in London — Lord Russell — Elected to Athenaeum 
Club — Mr. Gladstone — Reform Bill of 1867 — Bagneres 

— Lord Carnwath's death — Lecture at the Royal Institution 

— Irish Church Disestablishment — Publication of the ' His- 
tory of European Morals ' — Reviews — Irish Church Bill — 
Grand Jury in Queen's County — Third visit to Spain — 
Lord Morris — Rome — Oecumenical Council — San Remo 

— Irish Land Bill. 

In the beginning of October 1866 Lecky took cham- 
bers at 6 Albemarle Street, which were sufficiently 
quiet, as they did not look on the street, and he found 
it convenient to house his many books; but he was a 
good deal away himself. He went to the north of 
Italy for part of the winter, and on his return he wrote 
to Mr. Booth (May 2, 1867) : 

'I got back here somewhat refreshed by a three 
months' dose of perfect solitude, and am falling into 
my usual ways. The Athenaeum, I find, has, during 
my absence, been good enough to elect me a member. 
I have seen scarcely anyone except Dean Milman and 
Lord Russell, who has been good enough to want to 
know me and whom I met last night at Dean Mil- 
man's, who kindly made up a little party to bring us 
together.' 

This meeting was the beginning of a friendship which 
only ended with Lord Russell's death, and which was 
continued to his children. In the ' Life ' of Lord 
Russell by Stuart Reid, Lecky gives an appreciation of 

58 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1867 59 

Lord Russell's character which testifies to the regard he 
felt for him and the relations that existed between them. 
About the same time he made, through Dean Mil- 
man, the acquaintance of Mr. Gladstone, whom he 
admired in those days more than any other living 
statesman, and whom he now frequently saw. The 
Government of Disraeli had astonished the world by 
bringing in and carrying a Reform Bill which went 
much further than the Bill their own party had thrown 
out the previous year. Writing to his cousin, Mr. 
Charles Bowen, Lecky denounced the volte face in his 
own vigorous way. Mr. Charles Hartpole Bowen, of 
Kilnacourt, Portarlington, though belonging to an 
older generation than himself, 1 had been from early 
years a great friend of his. He was an Irish landlord, a 
man of literary tastes, and a strong Tory. Lecky had 
always been a Liberal, but never ' a Radical,' as he 
said on this occasion, ' like Mr. Bright or Mr. Disraeli.' 

6 Albemarle Street: June 11, 1867. — 'The last Gov- 
ernment were, I think, perfectly right in insisting upon 
a Reform fBill. The great desideratum is a legisla- 
tive assembly which adequately represents and gives 
a legitimate vent to all the forms of public opinion 
that exist in the country. Since 1832 the immense 
growth of manufactures, the extension of education 
among the working classes, the formation of mechanics' 
institutes, &c, had all created a strong public opinion 
among the skilled artificers which was not represented, 
or at least adequately represented, in Parliament. 
Considering Parliament as a representative body, 
Mr. Gladstone was perfectly right in agitating to 



1 His mother was Miss M. He married Miss Cooper, of 
Hartpole, sister of Mr. Lecky's Marcrea. 
grandmother. See ante, p. 3. 



60 "WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

have this defect remedied. Considering it as a legis- 
lative body he was not less right, for the distinctive 
quality of the skilled artificer class, is an energy and a 
generosity of spirit in reforming old abuses, and the 
greatest fault of the present Parliament is the marked 
decadence of this spirit which it has of late years 
manifested — its systematic adjournment of great 
questions, its eminently hand-to-mouth policy. This 
being the case, Mr. Gladstone brought in a Bill which, 
if it be judged by the true political tests — its suit- 
ability to remedy an existing evil and its adaptation 
to the existing state of public opinion — was, I think, 
as nearly a perfectly wise measure as any that could be 
conceived. Your Tory friends threw it out chiefly 
on the ground that to depress the suffrage as far as 
the £7 line, to admit about 350,000 more electors, 
would be to give up the country to a torrent of democ- 
racy. They made Lowe their chief representative; 
they cheered him to the very echo when he pronounced 
against all depression of the suffrage, and they won 
the day. Now the Bill of the last Government would 
have been accepted by the people as settling the ques- 
tion for many years. After the agitation caused by 
its rejection it was, of course, necessary to pass a Bill 
somewhat larger; but a Liberal Government trusted 
by the people could have settled the question with a 
moderate Bill — probably with a £6 or £5 line. The 
Tories, however, through the simple desire of place 
and by an act of political dishonesty which I believe 
to be about the most glaring in Parliamentary his- 
tory . . . determined to outbid the Radicals. Hav- 
ing one year declared that the Constitution would be 
subverted by a £7 line, they brought in household 
suffrage; having declared that to add one third to the 
constituency would be to swamp it, they have far 
more than doubled it, leaving the world at a loss 
which to wonder at most — the consummate skill of 
the political ■ who has managed the apostasy, or 



POLITICAL VIEWS 61 

the unheard-of, prodigious, almost supernatural stupid- 
ity of the really conservative members of the party 
who have managed to persuade themselves that their 
present conduct is anything but the utter abandon- 
ment of their past principles. Liberals usually canvass 
measures. Tories follow men, and this is doubt- 
less with the majority the explanation of the phenom- 
enon. . . . Bright himself, as well as nearly all the 
genuine Liberals, except Sir Roundell Palmer, con- 
sider the Bill too democratic. Some Radicals, how- 
ever, I meet, such as Mr. Stansfeld, and Mr. Hughes 
(both very extreme men), think it just right. My one 
consolation is that it gives a better chance to a fa- 
vourite idea of mine, the representation of minorities, 
either by cumulative or distributive voting.' 

He wished at that time very much to get into Par- 
liament at the next dissolution, finding it 'very, very 
tantalising to look at the House from a gallery/ but 
'unfortunately,' he wrote, 'I know no Irish Liberals, 
have not the gift of pushing, and fear there is there- 
fore no chance. If I went in it should be as a Liberal, 
not as a Tory or a Radical (the two just at present 
seem almost convertible terms).' 'With my usual 
great moderation of temper,' he wrote to Mr. Bo wen 
in a subsequent letter, ' I have always kept equidistant 
from the two extremes of Toryism and Radicalism 
which those hybrid Tory-Radical monsters now in 
power alternately adopt.' 

Though time soothed the vehement sentiments of 
the hour, and though Lecky afterwards supported a 
Conservative Government, he always maintained that 
'few pages in our modern political history are more 
discreditable than the story of the "Conservative" 
Reform Bill of 1867.' 1 



1 Democracy and Liberty, cabinet edition, vol. i. p. 154. 



62 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Part of the winter of 1867 was spent with his rela- 
tions at Bagneres de Bigorre, whence he writes, 
December 4: 'Of late I have been working very hard, 
much too hard to be pleasant. As far as my experi- 
ence goes, I can always write very well on any subject 
when I care so much about it that the tears come into 
my eyes when I think about it.' 

Lord Carnwath, who had been long ailing, died on 
December 14, and Lecky wrote to Mr. Booth: 

Bagneres: Xmas Day, 1867. — ' I have been having 
a very melancholy visit here, having been sitting by 
the deathbed of my stepfather, Lord Carnwath, for 
whom I cared much, and who was buried on Thurs- 
day. What a dreadful thing is, not death, but dying, 
even in the case of an old man with perfectly tranquil 
mind, surrounded by friends and not actually in pain. 
Those long days and nights, when every breath is a 
gasp and a struggle, are a very dreary ending to life. 
Naturally our Christmas is by no means as cheerful 
as I hope yours is.' 

In the same letter he speaks of a request that had 
been made to him to lecture at the Royal Institution: 

'I have been advertised to lecture for the Royal 
Institution in the spring. I hate the idea of it, but 
I suppose it must be done. Speaking, when you have 
long given it up, is very hard to renew, and dead-level 
speaking for a whole hour is a dreadful nuisance.' 

He returned to London in March, and wrote from 
Albemarle Street: 

'I stopped a few days in Paris and made the ac- 
quaintance of Scherer, whom I liked. Have been 
here four or five days; am not very well — overworked 



IN LONDON 63 

and dismal. Gladstone has been writing a tract or 
review on " Ecce Homo " and an essay on Phoanicia in 
the Quarterly. . . . The last Bampton Lecturer has, 
I find, been writing a quantity of nonsense about me, 

as has Mr. , the Ritualistic writer. I mean to be 

here three or four months, and hope by general cut- 
ting down and mutilating to finish my book by Novem- 
ber and then throw aside literature. I have no belief 
in my future, and all the intellectual and political 
enthusiasm I ever had is extinct, the latter for want 
of any sphere for its development. ... I am very 
glad Arbuthnot is going to be married, the life of a 
bachelor being always a condition of ultimate misery. 
... I think I appreciate the calm of great moun- 
tains above all things, especially here in London, 
where one grows so jaded and overwrought.' 

Albemarle Street: April 1, 1868. — 'I am very sorry 
to say your fears are quite unfounded. I have been 
solely occupied with the book of Ecclesiastes, and you 
know how far that is from the Song of Solomon. I 
have been seeing a variety of members of Parliament, 
newspaper writers, &c. I have also taken lately to 
very long walks with Carlyle, who, the last time I saw 
him, described very justly your divine Comte as "the 
ghastliest algebraic factor that ever was taken for a 
man." * I have been reading a great deal and writ- 
ing a considerable amount. . . .' 



1 This was, of course, not lessly diffuse, monotonous 

Lecky's deliberate judgment style that his books are nearly 

about Comte, as the following unreadable, and this, com- 

passage from a letter written bined with his extreme arro- 

from Rome in May 1864 to his gance and the absurdity of 

friend Mr. K. Chetwode will the "religion of humanity" 

show: 'The position of Comte (which Littre has long since 

in literature is extremely curi- given up), has almost entirely 

ous. He wrote in such a hope- kept him out of the knowledge 



64 



WILLIAM EDWAED HAETPOLE LECKY 



His lecture ' On the Influence of the Imagination on 
History' came off on May 29, Sir Henry Holland in 
the chair; but it did not come up, to his ideal, and he 
was not pleased with it. The atmosphere was over- 
powering in a crowded room on the night of a thunder- 



of the general reading public; 
yet his very small band of 
followers comprises some of the 
ablest men of the age, and his 
suggestions have acted more 
extensively than perhaps those 
of any other author on almost 
all fields of philosophy. J. S. 
Mill, who is never weary of 
eulogising him, pronounced 
his positive philosophy to be 
the ablest of all histories of 
science. Buckle called him 
the greatest philosopher of the 
nineteenth century, and speaks 
of Bacon, Descartes, and 
Comte. Lewes, after spend- 
ing a life diving into German 
philosophy, declared that he 
owes to Comte the first sense 
of finality and repose he had 
experienced. Littre, who is 
a scholar of immense attain- 
ments, and one of the first 
philologists in Europe, declares 
that for years he has never pur- 
sued a subject of study with- 
out systematising it according 
to the principles of Comte. 
The two points on which the 
disciples of the school most 
insist are the law of the three 



stages and the hierarchy of 
sciences — the way in which 
each department of knowledge 
depends upon and is evolved 
from some previously mas- 
tered department. The grand 
resultant of the work of Comte 
is that he has done more than 
any previous writer to show 
that the speculative opinions 
of any age are phenomena 
resulting from the totality of 
the intellectual influences of 
that age — in other words, 
that, looking upon the opin- 
ions of large masses of men, 
there must always be a unity 
of character subsisting in all 
parts of their knowledge; that 
what they believe results from 
their predisposition to believe 
it; that this is governed by 
their measure of probability, 
which itself is derived from 
the analogy of other parts of 
their knowledge; so that when 
science has fundamentally 
altered men's conceptions of 
one department (say of the 
government of the material uni- 
verse) the effects of this change 
will vibrate through a'll. . . .' 



IRISH CHURCH DISESTABLISHMENT 65 

storm, and he was mortified at finding that the silence 
of many years had a good deal diminished his old 
readiness, fluency, and fire; but his audience evidently 
did not think so, for he received the most emphatic 
congratulations about it. 

The proposed disestablishment of the Irish Church 
was then the question of the hour, 1 and Lecky saw 
all the dangers of a long Parliamentary conflict on 
the subject. He believed that since the tithes had 
been commuted in Ireland there was little or no feel- 
ing against the Protestant Establishment, but that 
as the question had been brought before the country 
it was desirable to settle it speedily. 

' If the conduct of the Parliament just after the '32 
Reform Bill be any guide,' he wrote to Mr. Bo wen 
(6 Albemarle Street, June 12, 1868), 'there will prob- 
ably be some very energetic legislation in the first 
few years of the new constituencies; and if the Tories 
succeed in making a long fight about the Irish Church, 
if they insist upon identifying it with the English 
Church and on making the House of Lords its cham- 
pion in opposition to the House of Commons, I fear 



1 As early as November merit will certainly pass some 
1865 he had written to Mr. conciliatory legislation about 
Bo wen: 'One thing I think is Ireland, and the great loy- 
tolerably certain. A Glad- alty the Catholic priests have 
stonian Ministry and a shown will have its reward, 
reformed Parliament will Nothing to my mind can be 
assuredly take up the Irish more evident than that pub- 
Church question, and this, lie opinion in England has been 
which under any circum- tending steadily in this direc- 
stances would come to pass, tion for some time past, and 
will be rendered doubly sure has now all but acquired the 
by Fenianism. When the necessary force.' 
trials are over the Govern- 
6 



66 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

a very revolutionary spirit may get up in opposition 
to the English Establishment and the House of Lords. 
I don't think politicians quite appreciate that these 
kinds of movements go with accelerated rapidity and 
that the past rate of progress is no measure of the 
future rate. However, if the Irish Church is quickly 
and easily abolished, and if a moderate Liberal Gov- 
ernment presides over the first few years of the new 
constituencies, all will, I dare say, get quiet.' 

'I can quite understand,' he wrote to the same 
correspondent (6 Albemarle Street, June 25), 'people 
thinking it impolitic to have raised the question of 
the Establishment; but now that it is definitely raised, 
that it is certain it never can be at rest again, and that 
public opinion in England unmistakably shows that 
only one solution is ultimately possible, I cannot 
understand sensible people who object in general to 
organic changes not wishing this one to be effected as 
quickly as possible. A long agitation means the 
revival of all sectarian bitterness in Ireland, the 
immense strengthening of the pure voluntaries in Eng- 
land, and a contest between the people and the House 
of Lords which, with new constituencies and many 
revolutionary ideas in the air, is more likely than any- 
thing else to precipitate England into pure democracy. 
I am not a Radical (except on matters of education, 
which I think in England are fundamentally wrong), 
and just for that reason I hope the disestablishment 
of the Irish Church will be rapidly and easily effected. 
There is not the smallest chance of my ever getting 
into Parliament. I have no influence, no pushing 
faculty, no popular opinions, and very little money.' 

His mind was now concentrated on his book, which 
he wished to finish by the end of the year; and after 
some months in Albemarle Street he went into Devon- 
shire — not, indeed, to take a holiday, but to find 
greater solitude than he could secure at home. On 



THE 'HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS' 67 

his return to London he wrote to Mr. Booth (Novem- 
ber 5) : 

' I have been since I saw you going a vast deal about 
England, among other places to Lyme Regis, Exeter, 
Ilfracombe, Lynton, Dulverton, Torquay, Plymouth, 
Penzance, Bournemouth, Clifton, Ely, Lincoln, Mat- 
lock, Salisbury. Being a great deal alone, I have 
been very busy, and have also had a good deal of 
walking, which I always enjoy much except in Lon- 
don (a remark which I made to Carlyle when last I 
saw him, bringing down upon myself the snub, " Why, 
there's nowhere in the world that you can get such 
walking as in London — fifty miles of broad, well- 
lighted pavement"). I am extremely busy, having 
hardly time for anything, and carefully avoid all 
human beings.' 

He remained the winter in London, working hard 
at proof-sheets. On the last day of the year 1868 
he wrote in his 'Commonplace Book': 'The prayer 
of the Breton sailors: "Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, aidez- 
moi; car la mer est si grande et ma barque est si 
petite!" The sea of thought, the sea of literature, 
the sea of life, the sea of death ' 

The ' History of European Morals from Augustus to 
Charlemagne ' appeared in the spring of 1869. It made 
no less a mark than its predecessor, and was widely 
read, discussed, and reviewed at home and abroad. 
Students of philosophy who were opposed to the Utili- 
tarian principles spoke in the most appreciative terms 
of his exposition of the intuitive theory of morals. 

On the other hand, the book was violently attacked 
by the Utilitarians, who maintained that in the first 
chapter justice had not been done to their position; 
and it also met with criticisms from the orthodox 
side. ' The chief meaning of fame,' was Carlyle's 



68 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

characteristic remark on the occasion, 'seems to be 
that you have all the owls of the community beating 
at your windows'; and Lecky writes to Mr. Booth: 
'The agreement of the most opposite English parties 
in abusing me is quite touching'; and subsequently, 
speaking of one of these attacks, he says: 'I could 
easily point out many gross misrepresentations, but 
have no doubt the readers who will never take the 
trouble of comparing it with the original will think it 
very triumphant.' 

Lord Tennyson's comment on the book was: 'It is 
a wonderful book for a young man to have written, 
a great book for any man to have written, and proves 
that he has genius, true genius.' 

Mr. Lea, whose studies lay more or less in the same 
direction as Lecky's, wrote from Philadelphia: 'I 
have just finished your " History of Morals," and hasten 
to thank you for the very great pleasure which I have 
derived from it. It is a brilliant book, which for 
acuteness of thought and range of material is not 
readily to be paralleled in our literature.' 

In London society, where there is always a dominant 
sensation, philosophic controversy became the passion 
of the hour, and, according to an amusing description 
in the Saturday Review, philosophical discussions were 
going on at every dinner-table between intuitional 
young ladies and utilitarian young gentlemen. 

In a letter written some time afterwards (July 30, 
1870) to a foreign friend Lecky explains the thread of 
purpose running through this book and the ' History 
of Rationalism : ' 

'The two books are closely connected. They are 
an attempt to examine the merits of certain theolog- 
ical opinions according to the historical method — ■ 



THE 'HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS ' 69 

that is, by examining the causes that produced and 
favoured them and the degrees and ways in which 
they benefited or injured mankind. "The Morals" 
is a history of the imposition of those opinions upon 
the world, and attempts to show how far their success 
may be accounted for by natural causes, how far they 
were connected with pre-existing opinions, and in 
what respects they were an improvement on pre- 
existing beliefs. The "Rationalism" is a history of 
the decay of those opinions, an examination of the 
causes of that decay and of the manner in which it 
has affected the happiness of man. Both books belong 
to a very small school of historical writings which 
began in the seventeenth century with Vico, was 
continued by Condorcet, Herder, Hegel, and Comte, 
and which found its last great representative in Mr. 
Buckle (from many of whose opinions I widely differ, 
but from whom I have learnt very much) . What charac- 
terises these writers is that they try to look at history, 
not as a series of biographies, or accidents, or pic- 
tures, but as a great organic whole; that they consider 
the social and intellectual condition of the world at 
any given period a problem to be explained, the net 
result of innumerable influences which it is the busi- 
ness of the historian to trace; and that they especially 
believe that intellectual belief has not been due merely 
to arguments or other intellectual causes, but has 
been very profoundly modified in many curious ways 
by social, political, and industrial influences. I have 
also in my last book given a good deal of attention to 
the question of moral philosophy. I did so because 
I detest the dominant school among what are called 
"advanced thinkers" in England; because I thought 
that in trying to write what I believe had never been 
written before — a history of morals — it was neces- 
sary to have some clear idea of what morals were; 
and also because two very eminent Utilitarians had 
laid down positions that lay directly in my way. Mr. 



70 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Buckle said that moral ideas have been always the 
same, and that there therefore can by no possibility 
be a history of morals. Mr. Mill said that there is a 
history or progress in morals, but only on the supposi- 
tion that moral ideas came from the experience of 
the tendency of actions and not from an original 
faculty. ... I thought if you cared to understand 
what I had written that this might help you to have 
an authentic clue to my general purposes.' 

Lecky was by nature and by conviction an intuitive 
philosopher; the belief in an original moral faculty 
was the keynote of his life, but he did not accept the 
principle without rigorously testing it by the experi- 
mental method. 'The basis of morals,' he says, 'is 
a distinct question from the basis of theories of morals. 
Those who maintain the existence of a moral faculty 
do not, as is sometimes said, assume this proposition 
as a first principle of their arguments, but they arrive 
at it by a process of induction quite as severe as any 
that can be employed by their opponents.' * 

1 The History of Morals ' made steady progress. The 
first edition of 1,500 copies was very soon exhausted, 
and a second edition came out on June 1. The third 
edition was carefully revised, and Lecky explains in 
a short preface that in the first chapter four or five 
lines have been omitted and three or four short passages 
inserted, elucidating or supporting positions which 
had been misunderstood or contested. The book has 
been translated into several languages, and within 
the last years of his life a request came to him from 
Mr. Hirst, Principal of Gujarat College, Ahmedabad, 
that the first chapter might be reprinted separately 

1 History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 
cabinet edition, vol. i. p. 74. 



THE 'HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS' 71 

for the use of students in India as being the best expo- 
sition of the prevailing systems of philosophy. This 
came out in 1903 under the title of ' A Survey of Eng- 
lish Ethics'; and it has also been used as a text-book 
in England. 

Of all the books he had written Lecky had more or 
less of a predilection for the 'History of Morals.' 
When the book was finished he was glad, however, 
to turn to purely secular subjects, though requests 
came to him at different times to continue the his- 
tory through the subsequent centuries. Dean Stan- 
ley was anxious that he should fill up the gap between 
Charlemagne and Luther. 

'Being exceedingly tired of morals,' he wrote, Jan- 
uary 15, 1869, to Mr. E. Wilmot Chetwode, 1 while he 
was correcting the proof-sheets, 'I mean to leave 
them for ever with Charlemagne. Besides, my way 
of treating them applies a good deal to all periods — 
e.g. I have written a very long chapter on the nature 
of women, who are a permanent perturbing element.' 

After the completion of the ' History of Morals ' 
Lecky suffered very much from overwork, as the letters 
of that time show. He had for many years lived too 
exclusively through the intellect, without giving him- 
self the necessary holidays or without even the whole- 
some relaxation of outdoor games or a sufficient amount 
of social intercourse. 

He had done more brainwork than most people at 
his age. While Gibbon only published the first vol- 
ume of his history in his thirty-ninth year and Buckle 
the first of his in his thirty-fifth, he, at the age of thirty, 
had written two works of great research which estab- 
lished his reputation. His task had been a strenu- 

1 The father of his friend Knightley. 



72 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

ous one and had required no little courage, for it was the 
misfortune of those who like himself held what in those 
days were very unpopular opinions that in pursuing a 
course which they believed to be a duty, and often a 
painful duty/ they risked alienating many sympathies. 
Soon after the ' History of Morals ' had come out he 
went for a few days' rest to Arundel, a very favourite 
resort of his. He wrote from there to Mr. Snagge: 

April 17, 1869. — 'Do you know this place? I am 
very fond of it, and am given to coming here when I 
want a few days' perfect quiet and solitude. The 
Duke of Norfolk's park, which is very large and 
beautiful, is always open, and beyond it there are 
miles and miles of beautifully wooded down. It is 
quite out of the beat of tourists, and I believe I am 
looked upon as quite a phenomenon for staying here. 
Thanks for what you say about my book. Perhaps 
it is rather soon for congratulations. My perform- 
ance must clash in so many different ways with the 
opinion and feelings of so many different classes, and 
it deals with so many such difficult and sometimes 
such delicate subjects, that it will doubtless arouse a 
good deal of indignation in various quarters. It has 
cost me extremely hard work for nearly four years, 
and it is very improbable that I shall ever again write 
a book of such magnitude and research, so at least it 
at present seems to me. After a long book of the kind 
there comes a melancholy collapse, and it is humiliat- 
ing to think how large a proportion of the ideas and 
knowledge acquired in many years may be condensed 
into a few volumes.' 

He now went carefully over the 'Rationalism' for 
the stereotyped edition — the fourth — which was 

1 'The path of truth,' he corpses of the enthusiasms of 
wrote in a Commonplace Book our past.' 
as early as 1862, 'is over the 



IRISH CHURCH BILL 73 

soon to appear, and he was much gratified with the 
warm appreciation the book found in Germany. 
There was a demand for a Hungarian translation; and 
the German translation of the ' History of Morals ' had 
been undertaken by Dr. Jolowicz, the translator of 
the ' Rationalism.' 

Meanwhile Lecky's interest in politics was as keen 
as ever. Parliament had been dissolved the previous 
year on the Irish Church Disestablishment question, 
and Mr. Gladstone had been returned with a mandate 
from the country to carry out his plan. On March 1 
the Bill was brought in, and Lecky closely followed it 
through its various stages. 

' Few things have struck me more/ he wrote to 
Mr. Charles Bowen, March 15, 1869, 'than the extreme 
admiration I have heard expressed for it by some who 
were strongly predisposed against Gladstone and who 
thought it a complete blunder to raise the question. 
They say that the comprehensiveness and the finality 
of the Bill settling so large and complicated a matter 
is almost unparalleled — that all Gladstone's oppo- 
nents counted upon his falling into numerous pitfalls 
in the way of compromise which he has completely 
avoided — that the allocation of the property to the 
alleviation of the extreme forms of suffering is a com- 
plete solution of what was thought the insoluble 
difficulty of finding a disposition of it which would not 
excite fierce contention; that the relief to the County 
Cess will ultimately (by the ordinary law of competi- 
tion making tenants take land at the highest rent 
that will be compatible with its paying), be beneficial 
to the landlord, as will also the arrangements about 
the purchase of the rent charge, and finally that the 
adoption of the Canadian system of commuting the 
life interests of the clergy (which, by the bye, I pre- 
dicted to you some months ago) will ultimately place 



74 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

a very considerable sum at the disposal of the new 
Protestant Corporation. This is the kind of estimate 
of the measure which I hear on all sides of me, and 
it is added that, looking at the matter as a statesman, 
this Bill has the immense advantage that, with the 
exception of throwing open Trinity College, it seems 
to settle fully and finally the long series of questions, 
of " special privileges" between the two Churches, 
while looking at it in a party light it would be difficult 
to conceive a measure holding out bribes to so many 
different classes, and which, while dealing with such vast 
interests, presents so few assailable points apart from 
the general question of the policy it executes. In 
fact, no one, I think, can follow the English news- 
papers of all classes or can catch the tone of political 
society here without perceiving that the Bill has 
immensely enhanced Gladstone's reputation. So far 
I have written simply as a faithful reporter. For 
myself I think there is one great fault in the Bill — 
that the compensation for Maynooth and the Regium 
Donum comes out of Irish national property and not 
(like the endowments compensation) out of Imperial 
funds. Seventy thousand pounds a year less will 
thus go to Ireland from Imperial taxation. For the 
rest, I believe much more than you do in the ultimate 
good effects of religious equality. I think that the 
question having once been fairly raised could only 
be settled in one way, and that it was most important 
it should be settled quickly, and I believe it will 
prevent the grant of a charter to the Catholic Univer- 
sity and probably of other denominational favours 
which would otherwise have been inevitable and 
would, I think, be most pernicious. I was glad to 
find that Lord Russell (with whom I dined very quietly 
about ten days ago) has come to nearly my views 
about the Catholic University, which Lord Claren- 
don, whom I saw about three weeks ago, holds most 
strongly. Such be the sentiments of an impenitent 
Liberal.' 



GRAND JURY IN QUEEN'S COUNTY 75 

With his moderate views he thought at the time 
that Irish Protestants instead of confining themselves 
to inveighing against the principle should have sug- 
gested modifications. 

' Not the faintest expression of Irish Protestant 
opinion ever comes here/ he wrote in the same letter. 
'If you had advanced any policy other than mere 
obstruction a few months ago, there are numbers here 
who would have been only too glad to compromise, 
and even now I believe the Irish Protestants might 
modify what they cannot possibly prevent if they only 
had anything definite to propose.' 

The Bill passed that session through both Houses; 
and the change was carried out without the evil 
effects which its opponents had anticipated. It is 
even now recognised by many as having been a dis- 
tinct benefit to the Irish Church. 

During that summer Lecky was asked to discharge 
one of his duties as an Irish landlord. 

'I have been rather locomotive for the last six 
weeks,' he wrote to Mr. Booth from Paris, August 12, 
1869, 'some three or four weeks in Ireland, chiefly at 
Salt Hill, partly in the Queen's County, doing what 
was a good deal out of my line, serving on a Grand 
Jury. The Assizes were rather unusually interesting 
from our High Sheriff being shot. His carriage came 
in spattered with blood while we were waiting for 
him to open the Assizes.' 

The incident made some sensation at the time. The 
High Sheriff of the Queen's County was Mr. Richard 
Warburton, and he was shot at while driving to Mary- 
borough, where the Assizes were held. The outrage — 
by which he lost an eye — was a mysterious one. 
Some believed it to be of an agrarian character, and 



76 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

such outrages were not uncommon then. Others 
said the motive was a sectarian one; but it was never 
explained, and no one was ever made amenable for 
the offence. 'Travelling,' says Lecky in the same 
letter, 'to me is now as weary as an oft told tale, and 
I have not much expectation of enjoying anything.' 
He wanted, however, to read a number of books he 
had collected, and he went to his relations at Ba- 
gneres, and made from there another excursion into 
Spain. 

It was during this journey that he became acquainted 
with Lord Morris, who was then Judge of Common 
Pleas in Ireland, and who was travelling with his 
wife. They were thrown together in one of those 
long journeys which it is so difficult to break in Spain, 
and started a conversation on the manners and morals 
of various countries, which soon took a philosophical 
turn. In the course of it Judge Morris said, ' You 
should read Lecky,' whereupon Lecky very shyly pro- 
duced his card and handed it to Judge Morris. The 
acquaintance thus begun ripened into a warm life- 
long friendship. 

On his return to Bagneres he wrote to Mr. Booth 
(October 11, 1869); 'I have been for about a month 
in Spain — Burgos, Madrid, Aranjuez, Toledo, Valla- 
dolid, Valencia, and Leon — and I got away just 
before the Revolution. I have been reading very 
steadily at a single subject with scarcely any digres- 
sions into other fields, and there being happily no 
new books here (or next to none) I mean to go on in the 
the same way till about the 20th or 25th November, 
by which time I hope to have got through about forty 
formidable volumes which I brought two months ago 
from England, when I mean to go to Rome.' 

Lecky was in Italy when the Council met; and it 



ROME 77 

was to him a very interesting time; for Rome was then 
the centre of a large number of remarkable people 
from all parts of the world. There are, unfortunately, 
but few letters of that period. To Mr. Charles Bowen 
he wrote from Naples, January 11, 1870: 

'I have been going about Sorrento, Amalfi, and La 
Cava. Rome I find very interesting just now, know- 
ing a good many people who are much connected with 
the great ecclesiastical world there. People at Rome 
were a good deal amused and rather scandalised at an 
odd proceeding of the Pope's about six weeks ago. A 
hideous little African bishop, all speckled with small- 
pox, was presented to him, and the Pope asked what 
language he spoke, and was told that the bishop 
neither spoke nor understood any but his own. Where- 
upon the Pope said in Italian, in a solemn tone as if 
he was giving a benediction, "Then since you do not 
understand me, I may say that this is the ugliest son 
of Christ I have ever seen." ' 

(To Mr. Booth.) Rome: January 27, 1870. — 
' Except about a month at Naples and in its environs, 
I have been here since about a week before the Coun- 
cil opened. It has been very wet, but otherwise not 
disagreeable, and by no means overcrowded, and the 
constant sight of seven hundred bishops has a very 
elevating effect. They sit about twice a week, and 
people are not allowed to go even under the dome of 
St. Peter's lest the bishops should be overheard. . . . 
I am also doing a great deal of reading, but not writ- 
ing, and whether this latter will soon begin again on 
any considerable scale I do not know. I often feel 
very low and down-hearted about it. . . .' 

He saw something of American Catholics, and as he 
wrote many years afterwards to an American friend, 
they interested him very much. 'There was a Father 
Hecker who struck me as a singularly able man — at 



78 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the same time he semed to me intensely American, 
and amused me by the pathetic earnestness with 
which he said, " If the Holy Father could only be made 
to see how much better he would get on if he allowed 
public meetings and a free press!" and I attended a 
series of sermons by the American bishops, who seemed 
to me to take most of their models of supreme excel- 
lence from American history.' 

The saying attributed to the old Duke de Sermo- 
neta, 'The bishops entered the Council shepherds, 
they came out of it sheep,' seemed to him ' as true as 
it was witty.' To liberal-minded Catholics the result 
of the Council was a great blow. ' By committing 
itself to the infallibility of the long line of Popes,' 
Lecky wrote many years after, 'the Church cut itself 
off from the historical spirit and learning of the age 
and has exposed itself to such crushing and unanswer- 
able refutations as the treatise of Janus and the Let- 
ters of Gratry.' * 

Lecky returned to England in March, stopping a 
few days with Lord Russell at San Remo on the way. 
The Irish Land Bill which was then passing through 
Parliament was much discussed between them. Lecky 
before that time had not given much attention to the 
Irish land question, and he wrote somewhat diffi- 
dently to his cousin, Mr. Charles Bowen: 

6 Albemarle Street: March 14, 1870. — 'The subject 
is one about which, I do not, I fear, know very much, 
and I have been so short a time back that I have not 
had the opportunity of hearing the opinion of many 
politicians upon it, but as far as I can judge it would 
have been hardly possible to conceive a Bill on such a 
subject more generally approved by the moderate 



1 Democracy and Liberty, cabinet edition, vol. ii. p. 22. 



THE LAND BILL OF 1870 79 

men on both sides of the House (all, that is, between 
the Newdegate type of Tory on one side and the Sir 
J. Gray type of agitator on the other) and by the 
papers of all parties. Lord Russell objects to one 
part of it a good deal, i.e. to the presumption that all 
improvements are done by the tenants. He thinks 
that there should be no presumption either way, but 
that direct proof should be required whenever a claim 
is made. I was talking over the Bill with Sir Erskine 
May, who is a very high political authority, and he 
made exactly the same objection. What struck me 
as most dangerous in the Bill was that there is no 
limit to the time for which claims for permanent im- 
provements may be sent in, but the Attorney-General's 
speech seemed to show that that would be altered. 
I do not see why Gladstone should legislate at all for 
tenants over £100 per annum, as he introduced the 
subject by saying they were perfectly able to take 
care of themselves; but perhaps that is partly because 
I have tenants of over £100 per annum. Of course 
the Bill interferes a great deal with that freedom of 
contract which political economists have preached, 
though not at all more than the English Factory Bills, 
which have been among the most successful branches 
of modern legislation. But I think the immense 
majority of people have come to the conclusion 
that the social, political, and agricultural condition 
of Ireland is such that some special and, if you like, 
paternal legislation for Ireland is necessary; and if 
this postulate be granted, I think the present Bill as 
a whole is moderate, honest, and comprehensive. 
Lord Russell thinks the landlords will be very foolish 
if they do not accept its principle; that if they do they 
can easily introduce modifications in Committee; but 
that all parties should strenuously insist that this is 
to be a settlement and not an instalment. I will tell 
you what I hear that is worth telling about it from 
time to time, but generally English M.P.'s know next 



80 WILLIAM EDWAKD HARTPOLE LECKY 

to nothing about Irish questions and ask my opinion 
about them when we meet, and on land questions I 
am afraid I am by no means competent to give an 
opinion. Please tell me something of what you think 
upon it — in a judicial and not a high Tory or mere 
landlord mood. Did you not think the closing part 
of Gladstone's last speech extremely good? I wish 
Captain Darner's idea of having the Scotch system 
of jury in Ireland was carried out.' 

(To the same.) 6 Albemarle Street: March 30. — 
'I am sorry you are so pessimist about the Land Bill. 
I wish I was in Parliament to vote for it. I think a 
number of peasant proprietors would be one of the 
most useful and, in the best sense of the word, con- 
servative of elements in Irish life, and that the Gov- 
ernment project of helping tenants to buy their 
property will do much to call such proprietors into 
being on terms very advantageous to all parties.' 

Lecky always remained favourable to the Act of 
1870, though he thought it had some evil consequences 
which had not been foreseen and that it admitted a 
dangerous principle — the compensation for disturb- 
ance. 



CHAPTER IV 

1870-1873. 

Queen Sophia of the Netherlands — The House in the Wood — 
Franco-German War — Revision of the 'Leaders of Public 
Opinion' — Engagement — Views on the peace conditions 

— Darwin's 'Descent of Man' — London life — Marriage — 
Travels — Publication of the revised edition of the 'Leaders' 

— Florence — Rome — Proposes to write the ' History of 
England in the Eighteenth Century ' — Return to England — 
Knowsley — London society — Mr. Carlyle — Irish university 
education — Review of Mr. Froude's 'English in Ireland' 

— Family bereavements. 

Not long after his return in March he first met, at 
Dean Stanley's, Queen Sophia of the Netherlands and 
the lady who attended her as her maid of honour, 
and who afterwards became his wife. It was now more 
than thirty years since Queen Sophia died, and her 
character and views are a matter of history. She 
was a very remarkable personality. Descended on 
her father's side from the House of Wurtemberg, 
which played a considerable part in history, on her 
mother's side from the Romanoffs, she had inherited 
many of the elements of greatness. Her grandfather, 
the first King of Wurtemberg, was the man whom 
Talleyrand called un geant dans un entresol: her father 
was a clever and cultivated man. Her mother, 
Catherine of Russia, sister of the Emperor Nicholas, 
was a woman with a great deal of character and a 
strong will, which her daughter inherited. Queen 
7 81 



82 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Sophia had a keen love of knowledge, a marvellous 
memory, a quick perception, and, though not with- 
out prejudices, a statesmanlike grasp of European 
politics, in which her father had early initiated her. 1 
With a decided philosophic turn of mind she com- 
bined all the vivacity of the South German. She had 
a great command of expression, and her conversa- 
tion reminded one at times of the best traditions of 
the French salon. She was true and genuine, and 
disliked all mannerism and affectation; and though 
no one could ever forget she was the Queen, she was 
so genial with those she liked that she made them 
feel perfectly at their ease. Being free from the 
absorbing duties of a reigning queen and from some 
of the barriers which hedge a throne, she was able to 
read a great deal and to choose her friends, and she 
never let the opportunity pass of making the acquaint- 
ance of a remarkable man or woman. She was very 
fond of England, where she had some of her best 
friends. She had been greatly interested in Lecky's 
'Rationalism' and 'European Morals,' and had ex- 
pressed a wish to make his acquaintance. It was 
impossible to meet Lecky, even for the first time, 
without being struck with his transparent goodness 
and single-mindedness, his natural refinement, and 
the orginality of his mind. He was then thirty-one 
years old, very young-looking, with a somewhat shy 



1 Her political acumen was l'Autriche, c'est plus qu'un 

shown by the remarkable crime, c'est une faute. . . .' 

letter she wrote to the Em- Thiers took the same view as 

peror Napoleon in 1866, which regarded the Napoleon dy- 

was found in the Tuileries in nasty (Hohenlohe Denkwiirdig- 

1871, and published at the keiten, liter Band, p. 130). 
time : ' . . . Laisser egorger 



QUEEN SOPHIA OF THE NETHERLANDS 83 

manner at first, but this soon wore off. His travels 
had given him that knowledge of the world which 
greatly facilitates intercourse with foreigners, and his 
mastery of many subjects, his large-mindedness, his 
delicate sense of humour, were much appreciated by 
Queen Sophia. He was asked to meet her several 
times during her stay in England, and the following 
summer she invited him to pay her a visit at the 
House in the Wood, near The Hague. 'I should be 
glad to see you here/ she wrote, 'and I believe you 
would find points of interest in this country with its 
glorious past.' The visit took place at one of the 
critical moments in the world's history, and Lecky 
left the House in the Wood on the eve of the Franco- 
German War. ' When you left us on Thursday,' the 
Queen wrote on July 20, 'peace seemed a blessed 
certainty. A few hours later all was changed and the 
horrible struggle declared that throws two civilised 
nations into the most murderous war. The world in 
general will say, and I fear you among the number, 
the Emperor is the aggressor. . . . ' She liked to 
remember their ' quiet conversations, so different from 
the political strife/ and she expressed the hope that 
he would return another year. 

Queen Sophia was related to the Napoleon family, 
her father's sister having been married to Jerome, 
King of Westphalia, and she was attached to the 
Napoleonic traditions. All her sympathies were nat- 
urally South German. She disliked intensely Bis- 
marck's policy, and looked with dread on the possible 
domination of Prussia in Germany. 

To Mr. Knightley Chetwode, Lecky wrote from 
Berne, August 11, 1870, that he had paid a very pleas- 
ant visit of about a week, a month before, to the 
Queen of Holland. No one else was visiting there, 



84 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

and he saw a great deal of the Queen alone and liked 
her very much. 

'I afterwards went along the Rhine, hearing of the 
declaration of war in the train, spent about a fort- 
night in the Engadine amid lovely scenery and in 
villages quite, or nearly 6,000 feet above the sea, and 
so came down here. I confess newspapers at the pres- 
ent moment are even more fascinating to me than 
mountains, and I must at all events wait at large 
centres of news till the decisive battle has been fought. 
I think if, as seems probable, this war ends with a 
German occupation of Paris and with the deposition 
of the Emperor, it will have been one of the most 
striking instances of swift retribution on record. No 
war was ever more wantonly originated by a French 
ruler or more enthusiastically acclaimed by the French 
people or prefaced by more insolent and vainglorious 
boasting.' 

Though subsequent revelations have shown that 
Bismarck bore a grave responsibility in bringing the 
crisis to a head, it seems doubtful whether, even with- 
out the garbled telegram, war could have been averted. 
The moderation of the two sovereigns counted for very 
little. There were mightier forces impelling the two 
nations to a struggle which was bound to come. Bis- 
marck, having satisfied himself that his country was 
ready, only precipitated matters. 

Lecky returned to England in September by the 
Rhine. 'Saw Strasburg with the cathedral rising 
sadly from a cloud of smoke, and had not even the 
excitement of being arrested as a spy.' x The temper 
of a section of the French nation at the time provoked 
much condemnation, and Lecky denounced it in very 
strong language: 

1 To Mr. C. Bowen, September 20, 1870. 



FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 85 

' I think that there never has been in our time/ he 
wrote to a foreign friend, 1 ' a more pitiable, more 
frightful, and at the same time more despicable spec- 
tacle than that of the French nation in the first weeks 
of the war. All the lust for territory, the ferocity and 
the folly which 1815 for a time suppressed appearing 
again; the most popular newspapers full of the basest 
calumnies and the most brutal taunts directed against 
the great people they were attacking; the Emperor 
proclaiming openly that a "war is just whenever the 
people approve it," M. Rouher giving as the reason 
for making the war that they had now got their 
weapons ready; the streets of Paris full of crowds shout- 
ing: " A Berlin!" and " Vive la guerre!" boasting with- 
out the slightest concealment that they were going 
to appropriate some of the most essentially German 
parts of Germany, and exulting with a brutal glee that, 
thanks to their chassepots and their mitrailleuses, 
they could attack the German people on unequal terms 
and with more bloody weapons, and could plunder 
them almost with impunity; while the Government in 
their bulletins and the newspapers in their accounts 
of the war have dealt in falsehood and misrepresenta- 
tion to a degree which may have been equalled but 
has certainly never been surpassed. I think that 
the calm, patriotic, unboastful, enthusiasm which the 
Germans have shown, their manifest love of peace, 
their simple piety in the hour of victory, have been 
very noble, and that on the whole this war justifies 
more fully than any other I remember the doctrine 
of my old friend Carlyle that " right is might " (which 
in general I don't believe). I think that though one 
can hardly exaggerate the miseries of this war, it is 
more likely (partly on account of those miseries) to 
be followed by a long peace than any previous war. 
If anything can extirpate the French love of war and 



1 The lady who afterwards became his wife. 



86 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

lust for conquest it will be this war; the worship of 
the Napoleon ideal, which has done so much to debase 
them, must be seriously weakened,, and the Germans, 
from their national character and from the nature of 
their army (which consists of civilians and married 
men) are not likely to be permanently aggressive, and 
if the dominating power on the Continent passes into 
their hands, I think the moral level of European civil- 
isation will be raised. 

'At the same time my feelings about it are very 
mingled. It is impossible not to feel a deep compas- 
sion for the French, and especially for the peasants 
of the invaded departments, or a great respect for 
the courage they have so often displayed. I do not 
like Bismarck. I think the bombardment of Strasburg 
was very bad, and that of Paris would be much worse, 
and I am very anxious to see whether the Germans 
will prove moderate and magnanimous in peace. 
They are, I think, a less generous people than the 
French. ' 

Although he took this strong view about the origin 
of the war, he did not like the line the war was taking; 

' for there is a France,' he wrote to the same friend on 
October 3, 1870, 'the France of the Revue des Deux 
Mondes, of the Debats and the Temps, of M. Renan 
and Bishop Dupanloup, that I think the most charm- 
ing of all countries, and I quite agree with M. Renan 
(in his admirable article in the Revue des Deux Mondes) 
that the eclipse of that France would blot out a sun 
from the sky. I trust it may not come to pass, but 
I cannot conceal from myself that France was utterly 
wrong in the war, that she began it with an amount 
of boasting and of lying that was to the last degree 
revolting, that the notion of a country not being 
responsible for the acts of its Government (especially 
when that Government was cheered to the echo by 
a Parliament elected by universal suffrage) is gro- 



VIEWS ON THE WAR 87 

tesquely absurd, and that Germany has a perfect 
right to take such positions as will assure and strengthen 
her frontier. With these views I am a great deal 
more French than the people I meet in London. I 
have hardly ever, indeed, known the opinion of able 
and thinking men in England so perfectly unani- 
mous, the prevailing sentiment with nearly all to 
whom I have spoken being a deep satisfaction that 
what they consider one of the most iniquitous attempts 
of modern times has recoiled disastrously upon its 
authors, and a persuasion that the substitution of 
Germany for France as the ruling power will be of 
great benefit to civilisation. I took a walk the other 
day with your prophet, Carlyle, who assured me 
that the result of this war was "the most beneficent 
thing that had happened in the universe since he had 
been in it," and that it reminded him of "how Sath- 
anas went forth breathing boasting and blasphemy 
and hell-fire, and St. Michael, with a few strokes of his 
glittering sword, brayed the monster in the dust." 
My own view of it, you see, is not his, and I am a 
little sceptical about the resemblance between St. 
Michael and Count Bismarck.' 

Lecky was then at Killarney, and about the feeling 
in Ireland he writes in the same letter: 

' In Ireland, on the other hand, we are passionately 
French — partly because we think ourselves rather 
like the French, partly because of the Irish brigade 
which, in the seventeenth century, served under 
France, and partly because the English, whom of all 
people we dislike the most, take the other side. The 
country people stop one in the roads to ask for news 
of the war, and carmen and guides overwhelm one 
with political discussion. I wish you knew Ireland. 
I have so many enthusiasms and associations con- 
nected with it, and its history, and its politics have so 
deeply coloured all my ways of thinking. I always 



88 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

return to Killarney as in some respects the most per- 
fectly beautiful place I have ever known. The lakes, 
and especially the mountains, are very small as com- 
pared with those of Switzerland, but the richness and 
variety of the foliage — arbutus and holly spangling 
the darker greens — and the beauty of the innumer- 
able islands, I have never seen approached, and there 
is a soft, dreamy mist quivering over the mountains 
and mellowing the landscape which is to my mind 
the very ideal of poetic beauty. I am sure, too, you 
would be struck with the people, the most affectionate, 
imaginative, and quick-witted race I have ever known.' 

He was now deeply immersed in the revision of his 
'Leaders of Public Opinion.' He had been strongly 
urged to reprint these biographies, and the increased 
interest in Irish affairs made the time seem favourable 
to him for revising them and publishing them under 
his own name, with an introduction explaining his 
views. Much had happened in Ireland to modify his 
early opinions. The Fenian spirit had survived the 
suppression of the outbreak in 1867, and disloyalty 
was more rampant than it had been in the days of 
O'Connell, who indeed always maintained attachment 
to the connection. Though Lecky felt that the 
national sentiment was too real and strong to be dis- 
regarded, he did not think that the conditions of Ire- 
land justified a separate Parliament such as Mr. 
Butt advocated. However, the days were not yet 
when all power was to be taken out of the hands of 
the educated and propertied classes, and he was still 
sanguine enough to hope that some measure of local 
government in which these classes should have a pre- 
dominant influence might be possible. As he said in 
his introduction, 'To call into active political life the 
upper class of Irishmen and to enlarge the sphere of 



REVISION OF THE ' LEADERS' 89 

their political power, to give, in a word, to Ireland the 
greatest amount of self-government that is compat- 
ible with the unity and security of the Empire, should 
be the aim of every statesman.' He was also hopeful 
at that time that sectarian animosity would diminish, 
and that 'united education' under perfect religious 
equality would ' assuage the bitterness of sects and 
perhaps secure for Ireland the inestimable benefit of 
real union.' He eliminated passages that he thought 
too rhetorical in his early volume, left out the chapter 
on 'Clerical Influences,' and added much new infor- 
mation. 

He was now also collecting material for his ' History 
of England.' At the same time he thought seriously 
of matrimony, and became engaged to the lady he 
had met in London with the Queen of Holland, and 
of whom he had seen more at the House in the Wood. 
She was the eldest daughter of General Baron van 
Dedem and of his first wife, Baroness Sloet van Hagens- 
dorp. He hoped to bring out the ' Leaders ' in the 
spring of 1871, and worked hard through the winter, 
only allowing himself a three weeks' holiday in Jan- 
uary to go to The Hague. It had been arranged that 
the marriage was to take place in the summer, and 
that Mr. and Mrs. Lecky should travel for some time 
and spend the subsequent winter in Italy. Lecky 
was therefore anxious to make the most of this last 
winter of bacherlorhood in London and to get his work 
into such shape as to be independent of libraries for 
some time. He found, however, to his disappoint- 
ment, that the revision took much longer than he had 
anticipated; that the publication would have to be 
delayed; and that he could not give as much time as 
he had hoped to his new book, 'which was as yet 
only in its first stage.' 



90 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The devastating war between France and Germany 
was now at last drawing to a close, and early in Febru- 
ary the conditions of peace were announced. To 
Lecky, they appeared extremely harsh, and he feared 
that in our lifetime the world would never be again 
as prosperous and advanced as the year before, and 
that ' to arrive once more at the state of things before 
1848 was a dream too sanguine ever to hope for.' 

The publication of Darwin's ' Descent of Man ' was 
another great event that winter. 

British Museum: March 4, 1871. — 'What I have 
read of it, he wrote, 1 appeared to me extremely power- 
ful and plausible, and I think the book by far the most 
interesting, and even fascinating, on physical science 
I have ever read. The notion of perpetual orderly 
progress from the lowest zoophyte to the highest man 
appears to me a most noble one and the promise of a 
great future to the world and (in spite of all Bismarcks 
and Napoleons) extremely consoling. The book ap- 
peared on the day that horrid peace was signed, and 
I dare say in the long run it will prove the more impor- 
tant event of the two. I know, unfortunately, very 
little of physical science, but I know no book which 
seems to me to go so far towards what Buckle some- 
what ambitiously called " solving the problem of the 
universe." 

' I must say this peace seems to me to have thrown 
the world generations back, and the intense inter- 
national animosities it will produce and the permanent 
depression of thirty-seven millions of men is very 
dreadful to think of. I detest Bismarckism very 
much, but still more allowance must be made than 

you at ■ will make for a nation embittered by the 

brutal crushing tyranny that followed Jena, by the 
exultation with which that tyranny was recalled by 

i To E. v. D. 



INFLUENCE OF 'HISTORY OF MORALS ' 91 

the French newspapers only a few months ago, by a 
war which was one of the most infamously unpro- 
voked and wanton aggressions in history, and by the 
tone of the Paris papers, which, even after the sur- 
render, pretended that Frenchmen had not really 
been beaten. A nation is not apt to be forbearing 
when nearly every family has lost a member in resist- 
ing an unrighteous attack. Still, the terms are 
atrociously hard, and I am very sorry indeed for the 
French, especially the moral degradation they have 
exhibited. On the whole, one sees little consolation 
for Europe except in the monkey theory.' 

At the time of the Commune he wrote to the same 
correspondent : 

6 Albemarle Street: March 28. — ' I am quite in 
despair about Paris: it is so sad and at the same time 
so unspeakably contemptible. The Revolution and 
that most hateful Empire have corroded the character 
of the people to the core, and all Burke's prophecies, 
which people had called so exaggerated, are coming 
true. What a contrast to the attitude of Prussia 
when she was crushed in 1806 ! To anybody who had 
been trying to believe in human progress it is all 
profoundly disheartening.' 

In those days, while at the British Museum, he 
came across a little incident which gratified him a 
good deal. Someone connected with the Museum 
told him that he had been immensely indebted to his 
last book (the ' History of Morals ') , and that in a pub- 
lic discussion which had been going on in London 
about the effect of Christianity in the world he had, 
relying on this book, so far succeeded in defeating 
an atheistic lecturer who had been contending that 
Christianity was an unmixed evil that the latter had 
acknowledged his errors and quite separated from his 
former associates. 



92 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

One of his letters at that time * (Athenaeum Club, 
April 2, 1871) gives an epitome of his former life: 

'For four or five very happy years after I left col- 
lege I lived in almost complete solitude and in pure 
thought, but since I settled in London, which was, I 
think, in '65 or '66, I have been for about five months 
of every year going out a great deal, on an average, 
I think, about three times a week, and know enormous 
numbers of people, and have generally spent about 
two months of the remainder of the year, not indeed 
in the house, but chiefly living with my mother, so 
that a very moderate amount of real solitude remained. 
I think everyone who does serious intellectual work 
must be a good deal alone, and I have found the alter- 
nation very propitious for my work. Here one gets 
over-strained and over-excited with the throng of 
conflicting interests and ambitions, reading hastily 
and superficially innumerable books on innumerable 
subjects, seeing crowds of people who stimulate and 
tire one's intellect, and amassing quantities of undi- 
gested facts; and when I have got into a state of mor- 
bid, feverish excitability I have usually gone, with 
some long and serious books which require minute and 
patient study, somewhere far from everyone I know, 
and have there, in long, solitary mountain walks, 
calmed my mind and systematised my thoughts.' 

'I am afraid, so far,' he wrote to the same corre- 
spondent (Athenaeum, March 28), 'I have never suc- 
ceeded in being even approximately happy, except 
when working hard, and that I have measured my' 
life chiefly by what I have learnt and what I have 
done.' 

His ambition, as he explained, was 'chiefly the 
desire of the plant to produce its fruit, that intense 
longing to realise ideals of force and beauty, to make 

'ToE.v. D. 




WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 
From a Photograph by Mayall, 1871 



LONDON LIFE 93 

confused subjects plain, and to imprint certain views 
on the minds of men,' which was, he suspected, the 
strongest passion of most people with any real faculty. 
'I should not, for example, the least care to get into 
Parliament to make a noise and so forth, but simply 
because it is the sphere in which a certain order of 
capacities can alone be developed.' 

While working hard that spring he saw much of 
his friends, visiting Lord and Lady Russell at Rich- 
mond, one of his greatest pleasures; Sir Henry and 
Lady Taylor at Mortlake; walking with Mr. Carlyle, 
to whom he was very devoted, but of whom he says 
on one occasion that 'he talked much eloquent and 
exasperating nonsense'; talking over Irish history 
with Mr. Froude or discussing political questions 
with Mr. Trevelyan; breakfasting with Sir Henry 
Holland, of whom he was 'very fond'; meeting 'Anti- 
quarians' at Lord Stanhope's, the Historian, ' a sin- 
gularly agreeable dinner party; Lord Houghton was 
there and told many most curious anecdotes, and Lord 
Acton, who is a person I like and admire greatly.' 
After dining with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe he 
wrote: 1 

'I always look at Lord Stratford through the halo 
which Kinglake's book has thrown around him, and I 
cannot realise that quiet, gentle-looking old man being 
at times so very terrible. A great friend of the late 
Duke of Newcastle told me that the Duke said he had 
never witnessed anything so terrible as the explosion 
of Lord Stratford's fury, and all the authorities at 
Constantinople, from the Sultan downwards, seem to 



1 To E. v. D. Lord Strat- marriage, in which he showed 
ford was a friend of both Mr. a kind interest, 
and Mrs. Lecky before their 



94 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

have literally cowered before him! He has been 
having much gout, and looks a good deal broken. He 
is always very kind to me.' 

He also met again the great Irish novelist, Mr. 
Lever, whose acquaintance he had made at Spezzia, 
and whom he greatly liked, 'perhaps all the more 
because people in general make rather a set against 
him.' 

He went to see his friends the Chetwodes at Chel- 
tenham, and liked revisiting the places he knew as a 
schoolboy, and also the house of his old tutor near 
Gloucester. 

'It is a curious, dreamy sensation,' he wrote (March 
4, 1871), 'going back to a place one knew many, many 
years ago and recalling various painful associations; 
for I hated public-school life greatly, never playing 
any games, and being driven to the very verge of 
distraction at living always with other boys.' 

Lecky all his life disliked ceremonies in which he 
had to play a conspicuous part. 

'I own,' he wrote 1 (6 Albemarle Street, March 22), 
'I envy a good deal (since one cannot follow Adam's 
precedent and be married in a deep sleep) the lot of a 
great friend of mine, Thackeray's daughter, 2 who was 
married a few years ago in what seems to me a really 
rational way — the event not talked about before 
outside the family circle, and the pair duly walked 
one morning at eight o'clock, with one or two rela- 
tions and in ordinary costume, to the church and 
went through the operation and then returned quietly 
to breakfast.' 

The marriage took place in June 1871, and it was 
one of the little ironies of life that Lecky, who desired 

1 To E. v. D. 2 The first Mrs. Leslie Stephen. 



MARRIAGE 95 

his wedding to be as quiet as possible, should have 
been married at a Court; but this was inevitable, as 
Queen Sophia wished it to be from her house. The 
civil ceremony took place at the Hotel de Ville and 
the religious service at the British Legation, over 
which Admiral Harris at that time presided. The 
wedding breakfast was given by the Queen at the 
House in the Wood, in the fine hall called 'Oranje 
Zaal,' where the Peace Conference of 1899 was held. 
Prince Alexander, the Queen's second son, 1 proposed 
the healths of the newly married couple, which Lecky 
acknowledged in a few felicitous and graceful words, 
such as he always had at his command. 

The Oberammergau play had been put off on account 
of the war from 1870 to 1871, and Lecky, who had 
been much struck with it the first time, wished to see 
it again with his wife and to spend some time among 
the beautiful Bavarian and Austrian scenery on the 
way to Switzerland and Italy. 2 Meanwhile he put 
the finishing touches to the revision of the 'Leaders.' 
He had the proof-sheets sent out to him at Montreux, 
and it was published in the December of that year. 
Though he did not anticipate that the book would be 
as successful as his former ones, he thought it might 
make some impression at a time when Home Rule 
was a prominent subject, as it contained 'a great 
quantity of little-known Irish history and outrages 
the feelings of all respectable Englishmen about the 
Union and about Pitt, concerning whom I have been 

1 He became Prince of a journey to the United States 
Orange after his brother's and a course of lionising there 
death in 1879, and died in would be the most agreeable 
1884. and congenial way of spending 

2 Some of Lecky 's admirers the honeymoon 1 
in America had suggested that 



96 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

very violent.' He was, however, much disappointed 
with its reception. 

'I fear the world does not at all agree with you 
about my performances,' he wrote to Mr. Booth from 
Florence, January 24, 1872. 'Just thirty-four people 
bought this piece of unparalleled historical writing 
when it first came out, and whether it is going now to 
attract any considerable attention seems to me very 
doubtful. Before it appeared I never saw it noticed 
in any one of the letters about forthcoming literary 
works as one in which anybody took the smallest 
interest. Two or three days after its appearance the 
Longmans, in writing about it, noticed that they 
were surprised at the comparatively small number of 
copies taken by the trade, and, except one polite but 
very insignificant review in the Standard, I have not 
seen a line in print on the subject. Compare this with 
Hepworth Dixon's "Switzers" (which, I believe, came 
out some days after my book) the praise of which is 
in every newspaper, and you will see how little hold 
I have on the general mind in England. As for 
Irish people, they seem to me chiefly to know me by 
Cardinal Cullen, who is good enough to make me a 
standing argument in support of his denunciations 
of T.C.D. I quite agree with you in thinking Grattan 
the best, and in your criticism on Flood. All I can 
say on this latter point is that those who knew Grat- 
tan and Plunket nearly all said that Flood was fully 
their equal; while, on the other hand, there is scarcely 
a vestige in print of his early achievements. . . that 
he gave a justification of his conduct which is not 
unreasonable; that his contemporaries thought him a 
very great man; that Lord Charlemont, who was his 
close friend and a very good man, admired him to the 
end; and that his biography and that of O'Connell are 
among the poorest and worst written in the English 
language. Concerning style, some of the passages 



THE REVISED 'LEADERS' 97 

you admire I think too declamatory, but I could not 
well improve them. One's imagination is in full 
vigour at twenty-two or twenty-three, but one's 
taste is still imperfect. There are passages in my 
" Religious Tendencies," I think, as eloquent as any- 
thing I could now write, but there is also a good deal 
of bombast and tinsel in the book of which I could not 
now be guilty. . . .' 

In the course of a few weeks a certain number of 
reviews appeared; but though they were all favourable, 
Irish history did not prove to be a popular subject, 
and the English public do not seem to care for new 
editions, even though the first may have been quite 
unnoticed. 

At a later date he wrote to Mr. Booth from Rome, 
March 16: 'My Irish book is being translated into 
German: rather more than five hundred copies have 
been sold, and it seems to have excited some enthusi- 
asm among the " mendicant patriots " of my country, 
judging from the number of people who have been 
asking for copies.' 

In Germany, where his books were very popular, a 
new edition of the translation of the 'Rationalism' 
came out that winter; while in Russia a publisher was 
tried for publishing a Russian translation, on the 
ground that it contained attacks upon Christianity. 
Although he was acquitted, the book was put under 
clerical supervision, which was equivalent to its sup- 
pression. 

Among the social incidents of the journey were a 
warm reception by Lord and Lady Russell at Renens- 
sur-Roche, near Lausanne, where they were settled 
for some weeks; visits to Queen Sophia at Bex and 
Lausanne, and to that interesting old lady, Mme. de 
Bunsen, 'widow of the Bunsen,' who was staying with 
8 



98 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

her daughters near Montreux. At Florence Lecky 
found his old friend Sir James Lacaita. 

(To Mr. Bowen.) Florence: January 17, 1872. — ■ 
' We came down from Montreux over the Corniche as 
being the least cold way, found the promised railway 
not yet opened, spent a few days at Nice and a whole 
week in the bright sunshine of Mentone, and so, through 
Genoa and Parma, came down here. We are very 
busy with picture-galleries, and there is an admirable 
circulating library, of which I largely avail myself. 
I met, too, an Italian London friend, and we have in 
consequence been a little into Italian society, seeing 
the Corsinis, General La Marmora, and a host of dep- 
uties. Most Italians I speak to seem rather disgusted 
with their new capital, especially as the Parliament 
Hall they have built there has turned out a failure. On 
the whole, however, they seem getting on very well — 
education spreading rapidly, the product of the taxes 
increasing with wonderful rapidity, and some reason- 
able prospects of closing in three or four years the 
period of deficits. Many people, however, have got 
(what appears to me to be) a very unreasonable fear 
of France attacking them. I met, too, here lately 
Lord Salisbury, who has had a slight attack of fever 
at Rome; and Mr. Adams, who had just come from 
Geneva. He complained bitterly that the arbitrators 
had had to postpone the discussion for six months, 
and that he alone of the number had no home to go 
to in the meantime. He says that two of the arbi- 
trators do not understand English, in which language 
the cases on both sides are drawn up; and he struck 
me as being by no means proud of the very extrava- 
gant claims of his countrymen, and as scarcely deny- 
ing that they were put forward on the principle of 
Italian shopmen, who ask about three times what 
they expect to get.' 

Writing to his stepmother from Rome on Febru- 
ary 13, 1872, he says: 



ITALIAN JOURNEY 99 

' We stopped on our way at Perugia and Assisi and 
arrived here quite impregnated with St. Francis. 
People are grumbling a good deal about the changes 
in Rome, but, as usual, exaggerating a good deal, for 
the change in most ways is of a rather superficial 
kind. Great excavations are going on at the Forum, 
and the new life of newspapers, &c, strikes one who 
knew Rome of old very forcibly.' 

To Lecky Italy was the true terrestrial Paradise 
which supplied him with ideas and memories that 
brightened all after-life; and it was a privilege, his 
wife wrote from Rome at the time, to see it with one 
who knew it so well. No one could better initiate 
others into the spirit of early Christian symbolism — 
or the beauty of the art of the Renaissance, both in 
its initial stage, imbued with that childlike, sincere 
piety which no modern art can reproduce, and in its 
culmination, when pagan ideals of physical beauty 
began to reassert themselves. Lecky and his wife 
spent many pleasant hours in the genial society of 
that remarkable man, the old Duke de Sermoneta, 
and of Mr. Story, the American sculptor, and his 
family. They saw M. Minghetti and his charming 
wife, who had expressed a wish to know Lecky; and 
they were introduced to Cardinal Antonelli, who dwelt 
on the Pope's imprisonment, and to whom Lecky 
retorted that it was at least the most beautiful prison 
in the world. 

(To Mr. Charles Bowen.) Rome: March 8, 1872. — 
'We saw here, among other people, General Sherman, 
the American Commander-in-Chief. He is going to 
Egypt, which does not look as if he feared a war and 
he says the U.S.A. have only 28,000 men under arms. 
All American accounts I hear represent the Southern 
States as quite unreconciled, and as the Americans 



100 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

have very little fleet I do not think we have much to 
fear from that quarter. We see a great many people 
here, Italians as well as English, some of the former 
rather interesting. The Pope and Antonelli (the 
latter of whom I have seen) remain "prisoners" in 
the Vatican, and as when the cat's away the mice 
will play, Rome is swarming with "Evangelists" of 
different descriptions — Gavazzi among the rest. 
There was a great discussion a few weeks ago about 
whether St. Peter was ever at Rome, which was 
remarkable from the Pope having authorised Catholic 
priests to take part in it. An authorised report has 
been published, and all the little boys in the streets 
are crying, " La venuta di San Pietro in Roma ! " as 
if he had but just arrived. There was also a Bible 
meeting got up, chiefly by English, at which Pere 
Hyacinthe made a very eloquent speech. 1 I fancy in 
politics people are here much divided and by no means 
enthusiastic; and no wonder, for with the new Govern- 
ment they have got an income tax of over 13 per 
cent., extending so low as to include quite small 
shopkeepers, besides a very severe tax on ground 
corn, which reaches the very poorest class — all this 
in time of perfect peace, and with all this an annual 
deficit of some four millions sterling. Italian unity 
brings with it many blessings, but it is certainly bought 
at a very high price. We know Minghetti, who is one 
of the leading Ministers here, and who is kind enough 

1 It was the first Bible made a most eloquent and 

meeting ever held in Rome. really touching speech. 

'It was curious to see,' wrote Everyone who knows him 

Lecky to Mr. Knightley seems to be persuaded of his 

Chetwode, March 8, 1872. purity and gentleness of char- 

' Gavazzi spoke with a great acter, but his position as a 

display of physical force, but Catholic priest outside Cathol- 

what was really interesting icism is very anomalous.' 
was Pere Hyacinthe, who 



MAZZINI COMMEMORATION 101 

to be very enthusiastic about my books, and we thus 
hear a good deal about Italian politics.' 

They saw the bust of Mazzini carried to the Capitol 
to be placed among those of the great Italians. 

(To the Same.) March 22, 1872. — ' We had last 
Sunday a wonderful demonstration here to Mazzini's 
memory. The procession along the Corso was, I 
should think, nearly as long and quite as well organ- 
ised as the great reform processions in London a few 
years since. It took about three-quarters of an hour 
marching by each point, was accompanied by banners 
and a bust of Mazzini, and ended on the Capitol under 
the statue of Marcus Aurelius (whose extended arm 
seemed stretched out to bless the crowd).' 

After describing the scene to Mr. Knightley Chet- 
wode (March 27, 1872), he adds: 

' The sight was a very imposing one when one thinks 
that it was done in the very metropolis of Catholicism, 
in honour of one of Catholicism's bitterest enemies, 
after twenty years of the closest despotism, during 
which the main object of the Government was to pre- 
vent the faintest inculcation of Liberal opinions of any 
kind in Rome, very wonderful, too, considering that 
Mazzini did it all by his pen from a foreign country. 
Pere Hyacinthe is also here, and began yesterday a 
course of lectures on the reform of Catholicism. Per- 
haps he may in course of time become definite, but 
the one I heard was mere rhetoric and sentiment — 
very graceful and very amiable, but doing nothing 
either to define or to defend his very untenable posi- 
tion. . . . One does not clearly see what is going to 
become of religion in Catholic countries, for Cathol- 
icism is rapidly becoming incredible to all intelligent 
minds. I suspect the prospects of Protestantism are 
now better than they have ever been since the end of 
the sixteenth century. All political changes tend to 



102 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

make Protestant nations more and more the rulers 
and the magnets of the world, and the Infallibility 
decree is uniting very large bodies of Catholics in the 
same direction.' 

Lecky read a good deal that winter for his new 
book, but he did little or no writing. ' I am reading a 
great quantity of politics,' he wrote to Mr. Booth 
(November 9, 1871), 'and am just now a good deal 
pleased with Lord Grey's book on Parliamentary 
Reform, which I had never before read, and which 
seems to me to deserve a greater reputation than it 
had. But to my mind nothing is comparable to 
Burke, especially his "French Revolution."' 

About the purpose of his new book he wrote: 

Florence: January 24, 1872. — 'I want greatly to 
write a kind of analytic history explaining as well as 
describing about English politics for the last century 
and a half, and have read a great deal for it and made 
quantities of notes; but this, which has been long 
suspended, will not, I suppose, really get on again 
till I am in England.' 

'The vanity of literature is very true,' he subse- 
quently writes from Rome. 'Still, the end of life is 
to bring out one's capacities, and literature is the 
readiest and, on the whole, most satisfactory way of 
accomplishing it, and the power of expressing in a 
single work a long train of connected thinking is, I 
think, one of the highest of all pleasures. I think I 
could write a tolerably good book on English politics.' 

In the spring Lecky returned to Albemarle Street, 
and ' found my dear library looking as well as could be 
expected after its long widowhood'; 1 and he after- 
wards joined his wife on a short visit to Holland. The 
rest of the summer was spent with his relations. Lady 

1 To his wife. 



RETUEN TO ENGLAND 103 

Carnwath had given up the Bagneres home when the 
war broke out, and she and her family were now 
spending the summer at Torquay. Her son, Captain 
Lecky of the 78th Highlanders, who had returned 
from Canada with the germs of consumption, was 
giving his relations much anxiety, and the presence 
of the elder brother was a great support. 

In the autumn of that year he and his wife were 
asked to meet Queen Sophia of the Netherlands at 
Knowsley, and after that time an almost yearly visit 
was paid to that hospitable house, either in the autumn 
or at Christmas. The late Lady Derby was in some 
ways a remarkable woman. Very shy and reserved 
in general company, she was extremely genial in the 
society of those for whom she cared. She was keenly 
interested in science, art, literature, politics, and she 
had originality and insight. Lecky had much admira- 
tion for Lord Derby, for his high-mindedness, his 
well-balanced practical judgment, his simple, un- 
worldly tastes, which his wife shared. Neither of 
them had any social ambitions, and, though bound to 
do hospitality in the sumptuous fashion of a great 
English house, they kept clear of all the idols of 
modern society, and there was an old-world atmos- 
phere about them which had a great charm. 

In the autumn Mr. and Mrs. Lecky went to London 
with the intention of settling there. He now felt 
pretty confident that if he continued well, with a 
quiet life among books, he could write a book quite 
as good as the 'Morals' and 'Rationalism.' The 
Dean of Westminster and Lady Augusta Stanley 
suggested the house over the porch of Dean's Yard, 
and had Lecky at that time been in Parliament it 
would have been in some respects an ideal residence, 
but under the circumstances a house in Onslow Gar- 



104 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

dens, close to his stepmother, who settled in London 
at the same time, suited them better. In the early- 
spring of 1873 Lecky's books and furniture were 
moved into it from Albemarle Street, and it became 
his permanent home. 

There was in those days in London, in the winter, 
a very pleasant intellectual society, most of whose 
members have long since passed away. Sir Charles 
Lyell, the great geologist and his wife, — one of the 
accomplished Horner sisters — were among the first 
to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Lecky in their house in 
Harley Street. Sir Henry Taylor, the typical bard 
with the fine head, long beard, and slow and impres- 
sive diction, and his clever and charming Irish wife 
gathered round them a circle of old friends, among 
whom were Lord and Lady Minto * and their sons, 
Sir James and Lady Stephen, Sir Frederick and Lady 
Elliot, Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Stephen, Mr. and Mrs. 
Brookfield, Mr. and Mrs. Earle, 2 Miss Thackeray, 
Miss Cobbe, Mr. Spedding, Mr. Greg, Mr. Browning, 
Mr. Venables. The poet Tennyson and his wife and 
Lord and Lady Russell used to come up for some 
months. Lord Russell's eldest son, Lord Amberley, 
and his wife — the daughter of one of the most dis- 
tinguished women of her time, Lady Stanley of Alder- 
ley — were then living in London and taking an active 
part in all progressive movements. Both were great 
friends of Lecky, who deplored their early deaths. 
The Deanery of Westminster was a centre where 
remarkable people of all shades of opinion met; and 
Mr. Reeve, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, and 

1 Lady Minto wrote The 2 Mrs. Earle, author of Pot- 
Life of the First Earl of Minto pourri from a Surrey Gar- 
and a Memoir of the Right den. 
Honourable Hugh Elliot. 



LONDON SOCIETY 105 

Mrs. Reeve received in their house some of the most 
distinguished members of English and French society. 
Lady William Russell, who had lived a long and 
interesting life in many countries, was at home in the 
evenings to a small circle, and the hospitable tradi- 
tions of the house were continued after her death by 
her son, Lord Arthur Russell, and his wife. Other 
pleasant hosts and hostesses were Sir Henry Holland, 1 
Lady Stanley of Alderley, Sir Frederick and Lady 
Pollock, Sir Lewis and Lady Mallet, Mr. and Mrs. 
George Trevelyan, Mr. and Mrs. Simpson. 2 Sir 
Charles Newton, who by his personal initiative and his 
excavations had given such an impetus to the study 
of archaeology, was much appreciated in this society, 
which included also Mr. Charles Villiers, who had all 
the social gifts of his family, and Mr. Kinglake, whose 
quiet humour delighted his hearers. Among men 
of science, Professor Huxley, Professor Tyndall, 
and Mr. Herbert Spencer were in their zenith: Huxley, 
brilliant, versatile, combative; Tyndall, keen, enthu- 
siastic, resourceful, with all the Irish charm of manner 
and conversation; Herbert Spencer, combining with 
his uncompromising logical intellect the frankness 
and simplicity of a child, and losing no opportunity, 
even in futile conversation, to cull materials for build- 
ing up his all-embracing philosophy. The Friday 
evening lectures at the Royal Institution seemed to 
play a somewhat more important part in London life 
at that time than they do now, and even Lecky, who 
did not generally care for lectures, keenly enjoyed 



1 The father of Lord Knuts- and wrote among other things 
ford. Recollections of M. and Mme. 

2 Mrs. Simpson was the Mohl. 
daughter of Mr. Nassau Senior, 



106 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Huxley and Tyndall's admirable expositions. A 
genial atmosphere and a total absence of ostentation 
made intercourse easy and pleasant; and it was the 
kind of society Lecky liked the best, and where he was 
the most appreciated. 

Mr. Carlyle now rarely showed himself in society; 
the death of his wife had cast a lasting gloom over 
him, but he went occasionally to see his friends and 
liked them to visit him. He had from the first been 
very friendly to Lecky, and expressed the wish to see 
him often, and he gave his wife 'many welcomes to 
England' and extended his unfailing kindness to her. 
Lecky admired him as a genius and a moral force, 
but he was in no way a disciple of his, and anyone 
who did not reflect Mr. Carlyle's views never wholly 
escaped his criticism. Their relations, however, were 
most amicable, and a weekly walk or drive became an 
institution. Once only a shadow passed between 
them. Mr. Carlyle, knowing Lecky's views, had 
been inveighing in his emphatic monologue fashion 
against Ireland and the Irish. This was particularly 
distasteful to Lecky, who always resented any attack 
on what he cared for, and he stayed away longer 
than usual from Cheyne Row. Though no explana- 
tion was given, Mr. Carlyle was too acute not to under- 
stand, and he showed himself so much concerned that 
Lecky, who had no rancour in his disposition, and 
who, moreover, was very devoted to Mr. Carlyle, 
resumed his visits; the intercourse went on smoothly 
as before, and the offence was not repeated. Mr. 
Carlyle always praised Lecky's kindness, and used to 
say in his old age that he was as well taken care of 
during the drives and walks as if he had been a young 
lady. He was the kindest and most gracious of hosts, 
always insisting as long as he was able on taking his 



carlyle's conversation 107 

lady visitors himself to the door; and if one had not 
called for some time he used to say in a gentle, re- 
proachful way, 'You have become quite a stranger 
here.' This aspect of Carlyle is so little known, and 
a certain impatience which he exhibited in his irri- 
table moods has been so much emphasised, that it is 
well to recall the other side of his character. In 
some notes on Mr. Carlyle in one of Lecky's 'Com- 
monplace Books' he says: 

' His conversation was certainly of its kind immeasur- 
ably the most beautiful, singular, and impressive I 
have ever known, and two of the best talkers of their 
day, Mr. Venables and Mr. Brookfield, who knew well 
the best literary society of London for some forty 
years, said that it was in their time wholly unrivalled. 
One of its charms (which I have not seen noticed) was 
a singularly musical voice, a voice peculiarly fitted for 
pathos, and this (to me, at least) quite took away 
anything grotesque in the very strong Scotch accent. 
It also gave it a softness and a charm which is wanting 
in his writings. The latter-day pamphlets seem to 
me to represent better than anything else his conversa- 
tion. I have heard great parts of the "Shooting 
Niagara" from him before it was published. It was 
never for an instant commonplace. The whole dic- 
tion was always original and intensely vivid, and it 
was more saturated and interlaced with metaphor 
than any other conversation I have ever heard. It 
was a conversation which was peculiarly difficult to 
report, for it was not epigrammatic but continuous, 
and very much of the charm lay in the extraordinary 
felicities of his expressions, in the vividness of his 
epithets, in his unrivalled power of etching out a 
subject by a few words so as to make it stand in prom- 
inent relief. He was the very greatest of word- 
painters. It was always, as Sir Henry Taylor said, 
"the vision which the prophet Isaiah saw." What 



108 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Johnson said of Burke, that no man could talk with 
him for five minutes under a porch without perceiving 
that he was a great man, was most literally true of 
Carlyle. The intense individuality of his expressions, 
his thoughts, his imagination, was always apparent, 
and his talking was never more wonderful than when 
walking alone with one companion, for whom he cer- 
tainly made no effort of display, whom indeed he 
seemed sometimes almost to forget. His conversa- 
tion was mainly monologue and, in a greater degree 
than any other talkers, soliloquy. Not slow enough 
to be wearisome or to give any sense of effort, yet so 
fully and perfectly articulated that every sentence 
seemed to tell, it streamed on by the hour in a clear, 
low voice, glittering with metaphor and picturesque 
epithets and turns of phrases of the truest eloquence. 
Though chiefly monologue he had on occasions a 
wonderful quickness and dexterity of argumentative 
repartee, seizing in an instant a weak or unguarded 
point, and his language seemed to kindle as it flowed. 
Never was such a master of invective, welling and 
surging up in an irresistible geyser at opposition. He 
was also the most pathetic of talkers — indeed, the 
only talker I have ever heard who was really pathetic. 
Pictures of his early life, or of the sorrows of those he 
had known, or scenes from history were related in a 
tone and with a manner that drew tears to the eye. 
On religious matters his language had a sublimity 
and an air of inspiration which always reminded me 
(and many others) of what a Hebrew prophet must 
have been; and sometimes when very earnest he had a 
strangely solemn way of turning and looking full in 
the hearer's face for a second before speaking, which 
added extraordinarily to the impressiveness of what 
he said. I have never seen this in anyone else, and it 
always reminds me of Luke xx. 17. His knowledge 
and memory were very great, but of a peculiar kind, 
and his mind was like the electric lamp, which throws 



IRISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 109 

out both strong lights and deep shadows. There 
were large tracts of subjects, well-known books, large 
interests of which he was utterly ignorant — much 
more so than most educated men — and these were 
not always the subjects on which he was least dog- 
matic' . . . 

In the winter of 1873 Irish university education 
was on its trial, and Lecky, who was always watching 
the interests of his own university, wrote to the Times 
in defence of Trinity College and of Fawcett's scheme, 
which abolished the last remaining tests — those for 
fellowships. A few words of warning from the letter 
may be appropriately quoted: 

'To destroy the prestige and position of Trinity 
College would be to drive the ablest Irishmen more 
and more to the English universities, and thus more 
and more to denationalise the talent of Ireland. . . . 
It is almost the only corporation in the country which 
is at once eminently national and eminently loyal. 
Its education is probably not inferior to that of the 
English universities, and there can be no reasonable 
doubt that if it is suffered to remain national, while 
its religious disqualifications are abolished, its useful- 
ness will be immeasurably increased. 

'To destroy such an institution, or to degrade it to 
a subordinate position, would be one of the greatest 
calamities that could be inflicted on the country, and 
the act would have a peculiar baseness if it were 
perpetrated by that Liberal party which has for gen- 
erations made the establishment of united and unsec- 
tarian education in England one of the main objects 
of its policy.' 

A few days later Mr. Gladstone's Bill was brought 
in, and though at first his eloquence threw a glamour 
over it, the more people looked into it the less they 



110 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLB LECKY 

were pleased with it; and it was finally thrown out 
and Fawcett's Act was passed. 

That same winter Lecky published in Macmillan's 
Magazine a review of Mr. Froude's first volume of 
the 'English in Ireland/ and when the next two 
volumes appeared he reviewed them in the June num- 
ber of 1874. The divergences between the two his- 
torians are too well known to require being dwelt on 
here. While yielding, as he said, to no one in admira- 
tion of the many great and splendid qualities which 
Mr. Froude has brought to the study of history, his 
wide research, his eloquence, his consummate artistic 
skill, Lecky severely criticised his methods and his 
defence of the penal laws and of the persecutions 
which the Roman Catholics in Ireland had to undergo. 
His whole nature revolted against the spirit of intol- 
erance of which Mr. Froude was the advocate, and 
the use he made of his authorities. ' I wish/ he wrote 
to Mr. Booth, 'that I did not get into quite such a 
vehement state of mind about these matters' as I 
do.' 

Though he did not like reviewing the book, he 
thought it so mischievous, so sophistical, and so insult- 
ing to Ireland and Irishmen that he felt it a kind of 
duty to do so. The articles met with a great deal of 
appreciation. His friend Dr. Bence Jones, secretary 
of the Royal Institution, wrote (January 6, 1873) : ' I 
read your article in Macmillan last night, and like it 
exceedingly in every way. In thought, in language, 
in tone, it is all that your friends could wish, and it 
ought to be prefixed as a preface to the first volume 
of Froude's book by everyone who buys his book.' 

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy wrote from Melbourne 
after the first part of the review appeared (March 15, 
1873) : 



REVIEW OF FROUDE'S BOOK HI 

'I have just read in Macmillan your paper on 
Froude's last book, and I cannot refrain from thanking 
you for it. It is such an answer as will satisfy just 
and reasonable men, whatever may be their national 
or party prepossessions. ... If, like Mr. Froude, 
you had " come to the succour of the stronger party " 
you would have had more applause from the critics, 
but you would have missed the silent gratitude of 
men in many and far-divided countries who may 
never see your face.' 

After reading the last review, Professor J. E. Cairnes, 
the political economist, wrote (June 5, 1874) : 

' I cannot help sending you a few lines — I trust I 
am not taking an unwarrantable liberty in doing so — 
to say with what admiration and gratitude I have 
read your review in the current number of Macmillan 
of Froude's "English in Ireland." I had just fin- 
ished reading the work, and have rarely risen from a 
book with stronger feelings of indignation and dis- 
gust. So greatly, indeed, was my equanimity dis- 
turbed that, observing the almost universal favour 
with which until the appearance of your article it 
had been received by the English press, I had quite 
resolved to attempt something myself in the way of 
criticism, or at least of protest, against its gross 
perversions of history and malignant attempts to 
stir up the worst and most dangerous passions of a 
sensitive and excitable people. But having read your 
article, I feel that it would be idle to say another 
word, and that the best thing that can now be done 
is to promote its circulation far and wide, so that the 
antidote may be at hand wherever the poison has been 
taken. You have indeed done your work in mas- 
terly fashion, and, if you will allow me to say so, with 
a restrained dignity of manner and a charm of style 
which contrast most favourably with the literary 
qualities of the writer you review.' 



112 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Lecky strongly encouraged Professor Cairnes to 
carry out his first plan and write a review, but he 
replied: 

'I quite recognise the force of what you say as to 
the importance of several independent refutations. 
But the difficulty I feel is that you have seized so 
completely all the strongest points of the case and 
put them with such admirable force that one can do 
little more than echo your arguments in words which, 
as they are not the same, can only be weaker.' 

Professor Cairnes, however, ultimately expressed 
his views in the Fortnightly Review of August 1874. 

(To Miss Alice Chetwode.) Athenceum Club: Jan- 
uary 13, 1873. — ' We shall probably get into our new 
house in March. Till then we are at 72 Park Street. 
I am very deep in Methodist literature and not alto- 
gether satisfied with what I am doing. My article 1 
appears to have attracted a good deal of notice in 
various quarters, and will, I hope, have some good 
influence. The Irish side of things is in general so 
deplorably represented at present. Father Burke, 
who is very amusing and popular, appears to have 
the vaguest possible notion of the difference between 
fact and fiction; and Mr. Prendergast, author of the 
"Cromwellian Settlement in Ireland," and really a 
very competent scholar, has been writing a series of 
half-frantic letters in which he describes Froude as a 
viper, cold-blooded hypocrite, a bloodthirsty fanatic, 
&c, &c. I have no doubt what I have written will 
bitterly offend Froude, which is very disagreeable to 
me, as we are old friends, see each other constantly, 
and are to be near neighbours. F. is so disappointed 
with his reception in America that he has cancelled 
his engagements and must by this time have returned. 
... I have been making the acquaintance of a very 

1 On Mr. Froude's 'English in Ireland,' in Macmillan's Mag- 
azine , January 1873. 



FAMILY BEREAVEMENTS 113 

enthusiastic Irish lady of your persuasion, a Miss 
Wyse (related to the minister at Athens). She lives 
in the upper part of a house, the ground floor of which 
is occupied by a great friend of mine, 1 and she seems to 
have looked upon me with extreme horror till my 
"Life of O'Connell" was put into her hands, when she 
so far relented as to say, " I am really afraid I might 
like Mr. L." My article completed her conversion, 
and she insisted upon coming down to make my 
acquaintance, and has since assured me that she felt 
personally quite ready to have shot Mr. Froude till 
she read and was pacified by it! which I consider 
rather a triumph.' 

In the spring of 1873 a domestic sorrow fell upon 
his family through the death of Lord Carnwath, at 
Harrow, from measles, at the age of fourteen. He 
was the son of Lecky's stepmother by her second 
marriage, and had succeeded to the title in 1867 on 
the death of his father. He was an exceptionally 
fine and attractive character, and like a younger 
brother to Lecky, who felt the loss keenly; but his 
own regrets were merged in a mother's greater sorrow. 
With all the reserve of his nature, he possessed to a 
rare degree the power of throwing himself into the 
feelings of others and giving that tactful sympathy 
which does more to soothe than anything else. ' God 
bless you,' wrote his 'stepmother at the time; 'I trust 
that you may be able fully to know the intense bless- 
ing and comfort you are to me. ... I do thank God 
from my heart for it. . . .' 

Little more than a year after his stepbrother, Cap- 
tain Lecky, of the 78th Highlanders, died of consump- 
tion, and was laid in the same grave at Harrow. It 
was during that year that Lecky wrote in his 'Com- 
monplace Book ' some of the thoughts on death which 
have since appeared in the 'Map of Life.' 

1 Miss Elliot, daughter of the late Dean of Bristol. 
9 



CHAPTER V 

1873-1878. 

Dutch country life — Ireland — Views on a seat in Parliament 

— A Home Rule debate — Working habits — British Mu- 
seum — Record Office — ■ The Literary Society — The Club — 
Mr. Herbert Spencer — Professor Huxley — Scheme of the 
' History' — Visit to Ireland — Irish friends — Reads MSS. in 
Dublin Castle — Revises the ' History of European Morals ' 

— Atlantic Coast scenery — Speeches — Return to London 

— Bulgarian massacres — Mr. Gladstone's Blackheath speech 

— Paris — St. James's Hall Conference — Completion of the 
first two volumes of the ' History ' — Death of Queen Sophia 

— Death of Mr. Motley — St. Moritz — Publication of the 
first two volumes — Aim of the ' History ' — Appreciative 
letters. 

In the summer of 1873 Lecky became more intimately- 
acquainted with Holland. After the usual visit to 
the House in the Wood he saw a good deal of Dutch 
private country life. The houses struck him as much 
more human institutions, much better both for the 
owners and for the country than most English ones, 
being on a smaller scale, without the vast lawns and 
parks, enclosures of square miles of land, and armies 
of servants. At the same time he found they had a 
great deal of finished and concentrated beauty, mag- 
nificent trees, beautiful artificial lakes, and extremely 
fine gardens and hothouses; sometimes very fine pic- 
tures; and 'there was a wonderful air of comfort 
about it all.' 

114 



IRELAND 115 

'I own/ he writes from The Hague (July 24, 1873) / 
' it staggers me a good deal to see the immense devel- 
opment of the country gentleman's life going on under 
the Code Napoleon, going on, too, in the form which 
strikes me as socially very useful. I always had 
thought that the Code Napoleon would have made 
that impossible, and suspect that we sometimes 
attribute consequences to that Code which are much 
more due to the character of the French among whom 
we usually observe its operation. By this time I 
have a very wide circle of Dutch acquaintances, and 
there is a good deal interesting to be learnt among 
them. We return to London in about a week, and 
about a fortnight afterwards mean to go to Ireland 
for five or six weeks. I am working steadily at my 
book, but not by any means satisfied with my progress 
or sure that the subject suits me. I want to present 
a picture of the political changes, social and industrial 
changes, in England in the last century, to analyse 
the different forces that were at work, and to esti- 
mate their good and evil consequences. It is now 
more than four and a quarter years since the appear- 
ance of my " Morals," and I feel humiliated at being 
so little advanced, but during that period there was 
one year in which I wrote nothing, and another in 
which I did nothing except my Irish book. I want 
to be back in London at the beginning of October, 
and to remain there steadily for nine months, working 
hard.' 

A very enjoyable journey to Ireland was accom- 
plished in the summer. Lecky took his wife to visit 
his tenants and some of the most beautiful scenery of 
Ireland: Killarney, Glengariffe, Cork, Kilkee, the 
Cliffs of Moher, Lisdoonvarna, and Galway. 

His views about entering Parliament had under- 
gone a considerable change. At any earlier period 

» To Mr. Booth. 



116 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

(May 1871), when there was some question of a disso- 
lution, he wrote : * ' I fear I have not yet quite suffi- 
ciently schooled myself to help looking with a rather 
envious feeling on the actors on that great stage, a 
stage which, I fear, it will never be my lot to mount.' 
But now, in August 1873, he wrote in a letter to Mr. 
Booth: 'I cannot say I at all wish to go into Parlia- 
ment just now. My book is a task quite sufficient 
for what little energies I possess, and Parliament is 
getting every session less and less interesting.' 2 

(To the Same.) Februarij 26, 1874. — ' Thanks for 
what you say about Parliament. I find now that it is 
a sort of conventional thing among people I know to 
say they expect me to stand for somewhere, but I am 
not aware that anyone in Ireland even mentioned my 
name; and people with my mediocrity of position and 
fortune can never get into Parliament unless they take 
the line of a demagogue or have someone to help 
them. No one has ever really helped me, and I do 
not at all feel inclined to make any great sacrifice for 
Parliament, though one might like it if it came natu- 
rally in one's way. I cannot say I care very much 
about it, or about any pending question, and the 
probabilities are that this Parliament will be a long 
one, and that by the time it is over I shall be (if still 
alive) too old to do anything in a new career, and 
much too unambitious to care.' 

And, again, in answer to the same correspondent, 
he writes (March 24, 1874) : 

' Nobody in Ireland wants me or cares for me, and 



1 To E. v. D. Church. I find myself quoted, 

2 He observes in the same usually with warm approba- 
letter: 'It is a curious sign of tion, in nearly every page of 
the times that I appear to be Eaton's Bampton Lectures on 
turning into a father of the the Permanence of Christianity. 



VIEWS ON A SEAT IN PARLIAMENT 117 

I am wholly unambitious of Parliamentary life. It is 
one thing when the majority of a constituency agrees 
with your views — is in some degree proud of you 
and imagines you might do them some honour. It is 
quite another thing to get in by the division of your 
adversaries; to know that the majority of your con- 
stituents hate your views and will upset you on the 
first occasion; to feel that every single thing you have 
done in the world is, in their eyes, an objection, not 
a recommendation. I should have some chance if I 
had not published a line, and the constituents can 
easily find a candidate without the disqualification of 
authorship. I really do not care about any political 
question now impending, and have so much to do in 
my own line that it would require a very tempting 
opening to draw me into the arena.' 

He occasionally went to hear a debate. 

(To Mr. C. Bowen.) July 6, 1874. — ' I have been 
going to the Home Rule debate, which was very amus- 
ing, Butt, Sullivan, Lord Hartington, Sir M. H. 
Beach, The O'Donoghue, O'Connor Power, and Dis- 
raeli speaking very well indeed, the others (including 
Ball) very badly. I think the close was the most 
disgraceful scene I ever saw, dead drunk, mak- 
ing a long speech, amid shouts of laughter, about how 
he was a member of the great Latin race, called on 
by his name and lineage to defend his country; while 

in the midst of it, amid loud cheers, came reeling 

in as drunk as could be and subsided on the floor. 
I was told that in this latter case it was quite habitual, 

and could only devoutly pray that may soon be 

disfranchised and not suffered to disgrace itself and its 
country much longer. I saw Gavan Duffy, who is 
here, and who interests me a good deal, soon after, 
and found him not a little disgusted with the Irish 
representation.' 

He found a London home a very good place for 



118 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

steady work. 'I hardly think I ever wrote so stead- 
ily as I have done since in Onslow Gardens,' he wrote 
on March 18, 1874. He was a man of very regular 
habits, was always at breakfast at 8.30; and when he 
had read the Times he worked uninterruptedly most 
mornings and for many years in the evenings, but he 
gave up late hours in middle life. Although he was 
never robust, he had great working power, but he 
required absolute freedom from street noises or neigh- 
bouring pianofortes, or interruptions or cares, and on 
the whole he got a fair amount of this freedom. 

'It is the essential merit of literature,' he wrote to 
Mr. Lea in 1882, 'that with a little force of will we 
can always measure and regulate our work accord- 
ing to our strength. It is surprising how much may 
be done in writing by moderate work steadily pursued. 
Herbert Spencer is in this respect a striking instance. 
Many years ago he had a complete breakdown, and 
since then he has strictly limited his work to three 
hours a day and done all his writing by dictation. 
The essential thing is to avoid worry, which is much 
more trying than work.' 

He was frequently asked to give lectures or write 
magazine articles, but he generally refused. 'It was 
my early aim in literature,' he wrote in his ' Common- 
place Book' in 1883, 'to turn away from the frag- 
mentary and the ephemeral and to the limit of my 
capacity to embody my best thoughts in complete, 
elaborate, and well-digested works of enduring value.' 

The subject of his 'History' grew as he went on. 
'I am at present,' he wrote to Mr. Booth (March 18, 
1874), 'strongly in favour of appearing in print only 
up to the end of George II., and if possible this time 
next year. My Irish politics I have a good oppor- 
tunity of airing in a parallel, or rather contrast, 



WORKING AT THE ' HISTORY' 119 

between the Scotch and Irish business, and in one more 
sketch (I earnestly hope it will be the last) of the 
penal laws.' 

But as time advanced the date of publication 
receded. 'I find the book I have undertaken/ he 
wrote to Mr. Charles Bowen from Pitlochry (Sep- 
tember 2, 1874), 'to be alps upon alps, the horizon 
perpetually extending, and certainly shall not be 
able to have two volumes ready before the end of 
next year, which seems a long time; but unlimited 
patience is the first condition of doing anything really 
worthy in history.' 

Through the winter of 1874-1875 he worked at 
the MSS. in the British Museum. 

'I find,' he writes on April 11, 1875, from Bourne- 
mouth x where he had gone for a few days' change of 
air, ' they are very well classified and very easily to 
be got at, and I have made a list of about forty vol- 
umes, I think, chiefly relating to Ireland, I must run 
through, and have done rather more than half. When 
I go back I must get an order for the Record Office, 
where, I am afraid, I may have a great deal to do. 
What vexes me more than I can say is that I clearly 
see it is simply impossible for me to have finished my 
two volumes by the end of the year, and this implies 
that they will not come out till the following Novem- 
ber. History is so long and life is so short, and some 
three weeks ago I passed my thirty-seventh birthday 
— a great age.' 

He was afraid sometimes that the subject did not 
suit him as well as former subjects, and he was apt 
to get low, especially when he took a holiday. 'Do 
you know,' he writes to Mr. Booth in the same 



1 To Mr. Booth. 



120 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

letter, 'the story of Theophrastus, who, having got to 
his hundredth year, was persuaded on the occasion of 
some family festivity to spend a, day without work, 
and it was too much for him, and he died? ' He found, 
however, a pleasant relaxation in the society that 
he liked. In the spring of 1873 he had been elected a 
member of the Literary Society, a dining club of 
eminent men in various walks of life, of which Mr. 
Spencer H. Walpole, former Home Secretary, was the 
president, and Mr. Henry Reeve the treasurer. In 
the following spring a very distinguished and exclu- 
sive body, 'The Club,' founded by Johnson, Burke, 
Goldsmith, and Reynolds, elected him one of their 
members, an honour which he duly appreciated. He 
also liked seeing his friends at his own house. 

'I have been seeing,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'rather 
more lately than I have done before of Herbert Spen- 
cer, who (with Huxley) dined with us a short time 
ago, and whom I think very curious and interesting, 
though very wrong-headed. He was giving such a 
multitude of the most ingenious scientific reasons to 
show that modern painting is much better than that 
of the time of Raphael, that modern sculpture is 
much better than that of the Greeks, that Shakespeare 
could have written so much better had his compositions 
been based upon an accurate knowledge of psychol- 
ogy. What to me is most amazing about him is that 
he says there is, and for many years past has been, 
something the matter with his brain, and that he can 
never read more than one hour at a time or work alto- 
gether more than three in the day. He has written 
all his books in this state. They have all been dic- 
tated; his reading is chiefly done by secretaries, and 
he spends much of his afternoon playing billiards at 
the Athenaeum, because he says he must find some- 
thing to do to while away the time. He says reading 



HUXLEY AND HEKBERT SPENCER 121 

the most abstruse and reading the lightest book is to 
him just the same. I think, considering all he has 
done, this is quite unique in literary history. He has 
an odd way of making his own knowledge and habits 
the measure of all sound education. For example, he 
assured my wife that it was a perfect waste of time 
learning languages; for his own part, he is happy to say 
he never could be brought to learn any except a smat- 
tering of French. He thinks people should read less 
and think more; that much reading is usually a mis- 
take. After the ladies had gone up, my philosophers 
(Huxley and Spencer) got into a most animated dis- 
pute about the inferiority of women in every respect, 
both, indeed, asserting it, but Huxley attributed it 
chiefly to the struggle for ascendency in the first human 
stage; Spencer to the expenditure of forces in genera- 
tion. Huxley is very strongly of opinion that men 
are greatly superior to women, not only intellectually, 
but also morally and in point of beauty, which must 
be very consolatory to us.' 

In the summer Mr. and Mrs. Lecky went to Fran- 
zensbad, whence he writes (July 3, 1875) : — - ' We 
stopped on our way here at Strasburg, Carlsruhe, and 
Nuremberg — all old friends of mine. A Very pretty 
ceremony, the crowning the tombs with flowers on 
St. John's Day, was going on at the latter place, and 
the whole country looked like a flower show. One 
epitaph I thought very touching: "I will arise, oh 
God, when Thou callest me, but let me rest awhile, 
for I am very weary." ' During his stay he got a new 
German translation of his ' Rationalism,' by Dr. I. H. 
Ritter, who had also translated Buckle. It was in a 
cheaper form than Dr. Jolowicz ', and showed that the 
number of his German readers was increasing. 

'My present performance (about which I am apt 
to get deplorably low),' he wrote to Mr. Booth from 



122 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLB LECKY 

Franzensbad (July 18), 'will, I perceive, be in one 
respect the complement of what I wrote before. I 
then dealt chiefly with the power of general causes in 
dominating individualities and determining the gen- 
eral character of successive ages. In this book I am 
dealing largely with the accidents of history, with the 
many causes in which a very slight change in individual 
action or in the dispositon of circumstances might 
have altered the whole course of history. I quite 
think, with Grote, that the master-error of Buckle was 
his absurd underrating of the accidents of history; and 
Herbert Spencer represents the same tendency in an 
even exaggerated form. Sir Henry Maine once said 
to me that he knew no modern reputation which had 
declined so much in so short a time as Buckle's, and 
that he believed that the reputation of everyone who, 
like Herbert Spencer, treated society mainly as an 
organisation must suffer a similar collapse. There 
is, I think, a vast amount of exaggeration current on 
both sides between Carlyle, who resolves all history 
into the acts of individuals and deliberately says that 
it is wrong ever to write the history of small or bad 
men except as far as they illustrate the lives of great 
men, and Buckle, whose idea is history, leaving out the 
men and women.' 

The winter of 1875-1876 was spent in hard work. 
London: January 18, 1876. — ' I am, as usual, very 
busy over my book for the last time, and have almost 
completed the final revision of the first volume. I 
do not at all know what to think of it, and am some- 
times very desponding on the subject. We have 
been, or rather are, seeing a good many people. Dined 
on New Year's Day with Huxley, Tyndall, and Her- 
bert Spencer. Have the latter dining with us to- 
night.' 

At Easter Lecky went with his wife to Ireland, and 
they spent some months at Bray, in the midst of the 



A SUMMER AT BRAY 123 

beautiful scenery of the co. Wicklow and within easy- 
reach of Dublin, where Lecky went to work every 
day. There were some old family friends in the neigh- 
bourhood, such as Lord Monck, a former Governor 
of Canada, and Lady Monck, whose pleasant society 
in their lovely place on the Dargle was a great attrac- 
tion; and Miss Selina Crampton, who lived with her 
sister, Mrs. Jephson, in the neighbouring village of 
Enniskerry, where her cottage, covered with roses, 
was a bright spot to all her friends. She was a unique 
personality. Possessed with the most vivid imagina- 
tion and power of expression, she was inexhaustible 
in amusing and poetic descriptions of Irish village 
life. Old age, and even the blindness of years — 
from which she ultimately recovered — did not seem 
to touch her. Her buoyant spirit rose triumphant 
above all the discordances of life, and her company 
was as refreshing to those who came near her as the 
streams and valleys and mountains that surrounded 
her. She had much affection for Lecky, whom she 
had known from his boyhood; and many a drive on a 
car took him and his wife to picturesque Enniskerry, 
often past Tinnyhinch, where the memory of Grattan 
lingers. Her brother, Sir John Crampton, formerly 
Minister at Madrid, lived close by at Bushy Park, 
which he had filled with Spanish pictures and other 
reminiscences, and it was a pleasure to Lecky to revisit 
his old home and the scenes of his youth. Sometimes, 
as of old, he liked a walk on Kingstown Pier. He 
loved the sea in all its varying aspects, and especially 
on those dreamlike summer days in Dublin Bay when 
sea and sky seem to blend and the ships appear like 
phantoms floating in the air and reflected in the glassy 
surface. 

They now first met Father Healy, the great wit of 



124 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Ireland, who became from that time a very fast 
friend; and Mr. Prendergast, author of the 'Crom- 
wellian Settlement,' an Irishman racy of the soil if 
ever there was, cordially disliking England, but much 
attached to the connexion, having reluctantly come 
to the conclusion that Irishmen were not fit to gov- 
ern — ' least of all themselves.' Among other friends 
made at the time were Miss Stokes, whose labours in 
Irish archseology have received a permanent recogni- 
tion, and Professor Mahaffy, the learned and brilliant 
Fellow of Trinity College. The Historical Society, 
with whom Lecky dined, gave him a most enthusiastic 
reception. 

'We have been here very enjoyably,' writes Lecky 
to Mr. Booth (Bray, May 15, 1876), 'for some ten days 
past; find Bray very empty, with an almost Italian 
sky and scarcely a cloucl. ... I spend three hours 
every day reading MSS. in the Castle. They are 
admirably arranged, much better than those of the same 
period in London; Sir Bernard Burke, the Ulster 
King of Arms, who is at the head of the establishment, 
is the kindest of guides. I am all alone there and 
have a comfortable room to myself, and find the MSS. 
extremely curious and valuable. I am going through 
all the informations and presentments before, or of, 
the grand juries in the different counties of Ireland 
in the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, and 
the confidential letters of the Lords Justices to the 
Viceroys, who were usually in England; and there is 
also a vast mass of curious and miscellaneous corre- 
spondence which I must examine. It is most strange 
that all this mass of interesting and often most quaint 
and picturesque information, though open to every- 
body and, for the most part, nearly as legible as print 
should be almost absolutely unknown. Not half a 
dozen persons in a year, it seems, come there, and 
then usually only to make out some particular point. 



ACHILL ISLAND 125 

Sir Bernard Burke says that the whole secret history 
of the Rebellion of '98, all the treachery and all the 
secret informations of the United Irishmen, are there 
preserved and perfectly unknown — Froude, who 
seems to have gone very superficially through these 
papers, not having even gone over that part. I am 
finding a great deal that is useful to me, and I fear it 
will give my Irish chapter a very disproportionate 
magnitude and originality of research. I expect to 
be at least six weeks more at work here.' 

It was about this time that he heard that a new 
edition of his 'Morals,' for which the demand had 
increased, would be required in the autumn; and as 
he was anxious to revise the book very carefully it 
gave him additional work. He, however, found time 
to go with his wife and sister-in-law for a tour through 
County Wicklow — the Vale of Avoca, Glendalough, 
Luggala, and on to the Lakes of Killarney and Achill 
Island. It was an ideal summer with almost uninter- 
rupted sunshine. At Achill Island the beauty of the 
Irish coast scenery was seen in all its grandeur. From 
the top of Croaghaun the eye looks down 2,000 feet 
almost perpendicularly into the dark blue Atlantic 
Ocean; a transparent mist was hovering over the cliffs 
half way, where wild goats were feeding, and made 
the depth seem deeper still, the slow, regular motion 
of the broad Atlantic waves adding to the magnifi- 
cence of the scene, ' the grandest cliff view,' Lecky 
said, he had ever seen in any part of the world. 

He writes to Mr. Booth from Achill Island: 

July 24, 1876. — ' I have been a long time writing 
to you, but till about a week ago I was working very 
hard in Dublin, and since then I have been leading a 
kind of purely animal life, out all day and finding it 
impossible to keep awake much after ten. We have 



126 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

been having the most wonderful weather — hardly 
four showers since the beginning of May. The sea 
has been nearly, if not quite, as blue as the Mediter- 
ranean, and I find myself in always recurring wonder 
at the beauty and the variety of Irish scenery. There 
are views near the mouth of Clew Bay, to my mind, 
unsurpassed upon the Corniche, and there is a moun- 
tain called Croaghaun on this island from which the 
view is, I believe, of its own kind nearly unequalled 
in Europe: a sheer cliff of considerably more than 
2,000 feet high runs down into the broad Atlantic; 
while on the other side Clare Island lies exactly like 
Capri from Sorrento; and the magnificent range of 
the cliffs of Menawn (900 feet perpendicular) , with the 
distant views of Croagh Patrick, make the framework 
of a view as beautiful as Spezzia or the Bay of Naples. 
It is surprising, too, how much this country has within 
the last ten years improved. The hotels are usually 
more than fair, and as they are rarely overcrowded 
like those of Scotland, travelling here is immeasurably 
more agreeable than in that country. In the co. 
Wicklow and in many central parts of Ireland — in the 
country, that is, but not in the towns — the houses and 
dress seem very nearly as good as in England; and even 
here, where the hovels still go on, everyone speaks of 
the improvement in well-being. . . . My work for 
my Irish chapter has been very considerable. The 
informations and presentments of all the grand juries, 
the correspondence of the English authorities with the 
Lords Justices, the correspondence of the country 
gentlemen with the Government, the newspapers of 
the first half of the last century, and the magnificent 
collection of pamphlets at the Academy — most of 
them I have gone through. I hope my Irish chapter 
may be good, but I am not altogether satisfied with 
it; and I know that what I write about a certain author 
you know of will get me into a great deal of hot water, 
which will take a long time to cool. Nor am I satis- 



A SUMMER AT BRAY 127 

fied with my English chapters; but I find myself more 
and more fastidious about my writing and more and 
more conscious of the many subjects I ought more 
fully to explore. I am greatly afraid I shall have to 
make an expedition to Paris to make out for myself 
the extent of Bolingbroke's relations with the Pre- 
tender (through Iberville) in the last months of 
Queen Anne's life. . . . People here have been ex- 
tremely kind and cordial to me, Sir Bernard Burke 
and Mr. Prendergast (of the "Cromwellian Settle- 
ment ") giving me every help, and many other people, 
including the Provost, more than civil. I dined once 
with the Fortnightly Club — a very flourishing debat- 
ing society — and also with our old Historical, and 
had in the course of about a week to make three 
speeches, one of them quite unprepared. I was glad 
and somewhat surprised to find how easily it came to 
me. How difficult it is to realise that one is getting old ! 
I find myself with old associations dropping back so 
easily and naturally into old modes of thought and life ! ' 

On the return to Bray, Lecky resumed work. 

(To Mr. Bowen.) August 16, 1876. — ' I often think 
of a visit which Sir C. Lyell told me that Darwin once 
paid him when they had both just finished their 
respective books. "Well, here we are, Sir Charles, 
once more like gentlemen, walking about with nothing 
to do." I think Dizzy's step is very graceful and 
skilful. Lord G. H. told me his memory was not as 
it was, and he was evidently not quite up to House of 
Commons work. Northcote will make a very good 
leader. I have always a great regard for him for his 
"Thirty Years of Financial Policy," the very best 
resume of recent financial history. You should read 
if you have not yet done it, the New Quarterly with 
Gladstone's article on Macaulay, and Hayward's on 
Croker. But Gladstone certainly does not review 
Macaulay as well as Macaulay reviewed him. I have 



128 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

been working very hard indeed at my State papers, 
which are perfectly appalling from their number.' 

He was back again in London in the early autumn, 
whence he wrote to Mr. Booth: 

'I am just now bringing to a close the revision of 
my "Morals," which has been a very considerable 
work. It will come out in the same stereotype form 
as my "Rationalism," but with a somewhat smaller 
margin, so that the two books may be nearly equal. 
I have done everything I can to make this book as 
nearly perfection as in my power, for, to my mind, 
it is much better than either its predecessor or its 
successor, and it and the "Rationalism" together 
comprise most of what I have thought on the most 
important matters.' 

London: Autumn 1876. — 'I am going through a 
quantity of rather curious reading about the Irish 
massacre of 1641, which massacre seems to me one 
of the great fictions of history, though a great quan- 
tity of isolated murders were committed. The con- 
sensus of modern English historians, however, about 
it is so great that it is hardly possible to shake the 
belief in the English mind.' 

The Bulgarian massacres were now exciting great 
indignation all over the country, and Mr. Gladstone 
made his famous speech at Blackheath on Septem- 
ber 9. 

(To Mr. C. Bowen.) Athenceum: September 13, 
1876. — ' I think you Irish Tories are the fiercest 
partisans in the three kingdoms. It is very hard that 
an old statesman who is notoriously sick of office and 
enamoured of theology, and who is as notoriously 
distinguished for the keenness of his sympathies, 
should not be allowed to protest at the most atrocious 
murders of from 12,000 to 15,000 people, accompanied 
by every kind of outrage, without it being assumed 



REVISED EDITION OF THE ' MORALS ' 129 

as absolutely certain that his sole object is to eat a 
Ministerial dinner at Greenwich. The facts of the 
case are surely established by Mr. Schuyler and Mr. 
Baring beyond reasonable doubt, and I am sure that 
sooner or later the Turkish question can only be 
settled by the policy of contracting circles — giving 
home rule to province after province, and thus pro- 
ducing among them that capacity for self-govern- 
ment and susceptibility of independence which can 
alone make them a possible barrier against other 
nations. We were extremely fortunate the other 

day in hearing Gladstone's great speech. insisted 

(a good deal against my will) on going, but as we had 
and could get no tickets, and were not electors of 
Greenwich, I expected only to hang somewhere on the 

outside of the crowd. , however, audaciously 

went up to the platform (greatly to my horror) and 
asked, on no possible ground, to be admitted; and it 
so happened that the organiser of the meeting was 
an admirer of my " Morals," and accordingly brought 
us in, and asked me to second a resolution, which I 
did not do. It was nearly, if not quite, the finest 
speech I heard him deliver, and the effect on an im- 
mense audience of from 8,000 to 10,000 extremely 
intelligent and appreciative men I shall not soon 
forget. Considering that all those leaders who could 
artificially organise an agitation are at this time 
scattered, the strength and volume of English feel- 
ing on this subject is very remarkable, and the Times 
is fully supporting it. 

' . . . I have been working extremely hard, and 
have at last sent to the printer the new edition of my 
"Morals," which will, I think, be decidedly my best 
book. About my new book I am much exercised in 
my mind, not feeling sure whether I shall be able to 
bring it out this book season or not. I devoutly 
hoped to do so, being much fagged with the five 
years' steady work I have given to it. I have seen 

10 



130 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

very few people since my return, except Lord Russell, 
who is very flourishing, but does not approve of Glad- 
stone inviting Russia to enter Servia; Layard, who 
says any attempt to drive out the Turks will produce a 
religious war and a general massacre; and Carlyle, who 
has been ill this summer, who has aged greatly, and 
who is strongly of opinion that Russia must go to Con- 
stantinople * as sure as fate, and that she is the only 
Power who now knows the secret of governing anar- 
chical and uncivilised nations.' 

'I was yesterday/ he wrote to his wife (September 
21), 'a long omnibus and walking expedition with 
Carlyle, who seemed very well, is deep in Swift, was 
much pleased with some more books I have got him 
about Swift, and had been just having a long visit 
from no less a person than the Lord Mayor. ... In 
the evening I dined quietly at the Athenaeum with 
Herbert Spencer. . . . We talked much about style 
in writing, he being strong about the uselessness of 
knowing the derivation of words, about the bad wri- 
ting of Addison, about the especial atrocity of Macaulay, 
whose style "resembles low organisations, being a 
perpetual repetition of similar parts. There are sav- 
ages," &c. He has nearly finished the first volume 
of his "Sociology," and seems very confident that 
it will be a complete explanation of human life. He 
finds it, however, longer than he intended, as " he had 
quite forgotten" the existence of one part, "domestic 
relations." .. . . However, these, too, will be explained.' 

He then adds that Mr. Spencer 'seems devoted to 
the theatre; complains of his difficulty in remembering 
the people's (especially ladies') lineaments; had been in 



1 Lecky heard on good would be ruinous to Russia, 

authority at that time that and that his own idea always 

the Czar strongly disclaimed was that it might some day 

all wish to have Constanti- become a free city like one 

nople, saying two capitals of the old German ones. 



CONFERENCE IN ST. JAMES'S HALL 131 

Ireland, at Dublin and Belfast, but did not find the 
hotels comfortable enough/ 

Lecky went to Paris, but found that he could not 
see the 'Archives/ as they were shut up for the vaca- 
tion. He arranged, however, to get copies of what 
he required sent to him. 'Please tell the Queen/ he 
wrote from Paris (September 24) / 'how very sorry 
I am that I cannot be with her this autumn, but that 
I am obliged to work so very hard that every day is 
of real importance to me.' 

He found not much going on in Paris, except 'a 
commemoration of the anniversary of the French 
Convention in 1792, which is supposed to have regu- 
lated French politics in such a very intelligent and 
successful and enlightened manner that it is still 
right to commemorate it with a quantity of eloquence 
about "the history of kings being the martyrology of 
peoples." Bulgarian atrocities do not seem to be 
exciting the very faintest interest in France.' 

Lecky was one of the conveners of the conference 
which took place in the St. James's Hall on December 
8 to protest against a warlike policy, and he was asked 
to speak, but from long disuse he had now got some- 
what nervous about speaking, and refused, not without 
regret ; 

'for/ as he wrote to Mr. C. Bowen (December 18, 
1876), ' it is a pity to have a capacity going all to waste, 
and the opportunity was rather unusually good. How- 
ever, I at least can only do one thing well at a time, 
and for the present I am occupied very exclusively 
with my books. I do not know whether you ever see 
the Times. It has, in my opinion, been taking a very 



1 To his wife, who was staying with Queen Sophia at the House 
in the Wood. 



132 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

sensible line on all this, and I believe that if Lord 
Salisbury is looked upon as sent to try and get really 
good government for the Christians and not primarily 
and mainly as the champion of the Turks and the 
antagonist of the Russians, there will still be peace. 
The main danger lies in the obstinacy of Turkey, due 
to the notion that England will fight for her; and I 
think our " indignation meeting," representing as it 
did a very unusual assembly of classes and political 
forces, was of some good in disabusing them of that 
notion. Gladstone's speech, though very moderate 
and statesmanlike, was feebly delivered, and as a 
piece of oratory very inferior to that of Blackheath.' 1 

The winter of 1876-1877 was mainly spent in cor- 
recting and revising the proof-sheets of the first two 
volumes of the 'History,' containing 1250 pages and 
comprising the first sixty years of the eighteenth 
century. An active correspondence with Mr. Charles 
Bowen at that time related chiefly to a translation 
of 'Faust' which Mr. Bowen had done in his youth, 
and which, stimulated by the example of his juniors, 
he was now anxious to see in print. Lecky's help 
and advice were constantly required, and given with 
that ungrudging devotion which was characteristic 
of him, though his hands were full at the time. 2 

'I am so glad,' he wrote to Mr. Bowen (May 26, 
1877), 'that you have brought this little enterprise to 



1 Mr. Gladstone was con- 2 The Faust, written some 

scious of this. He says in his forty years previously, was 

'Diary': 'Spoke (I fear) one first privately printed and 

and a half hours with some afterwards published and very 

exertion — far from wholly to favourably reviewed, in spite 

my satisfaction' (Morley's Life of the many translations of 

of Gladstone, vol. ii. p. 559). Faust there were already. 



Wallace's ' Russia' 133 

pass. ... I agree very much with you about the 
East, and no one that I know of except Carlyle wants 
Russia to be at Constantinople. Mr. Wallace, 1 who 
knows Russia better than anyone I meet, thinks she 
will be contented with Batoum, and he is very scep- 
tical about her passion for great territorial acquisitions 
which do not pay. I think Russia is right in this 
war, and also that the Turkish is the worst Govern- 
ment in Europe, and that it is so undermined by in- 
ternal decay that it would be perfect madness making 
its maintenance a main object of policy; but, that 
being admitted, I think the more that is done in the 
way of creating autonomies the better. ... I dined a 
few days ago with old Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars. 
He says Kars has been much strengthened since his 
time, and that it will give much trouble if properly 
provisioned, but that in that country if you buy pro- 
visions or anything else you are sure to be cheated.' 

Mr. Wallace's book on Russia came out that year 
at an opportune moment to enlighten the public about 
the inner life of a country which was but little known. 
Lecky knew the author, who struck him as 'an ex- 
tremely clever man as well as a good observer.' They 
frequently met, and always kept up most cordial 
relations. 

A publication of Sir Leslie Stephen's 'English 
Thought in the Eighteenth Century' was of great 
interest to him. He thought it a very remarkable 
book, and, as he wrote to Mr. Bowen, 2 'I hope we two 
may rather help than injure each other, he being con- 
cerned with the intellectual and speculative side, I 
with the practical, active, and social.' 



1 Now Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace. 

2 March 31, 1877. 



134 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



(To Mr. Booth.) Athenosum: May 22, 1877. — 'I 
have been a good deal overtasked by proof-sheets. I 
am now in my second volume and very near my Irish 
chapters, which are the most difficult part, as hardly 
any part of Irish history has been tolerably written, 
and one has to gather one's materials very much at 
first hand and from an immense mass of contradic- 
tions.' 

(To the Same.) Nimegue: July 12, 1877. — 'I have 
been busy revising my "Methodists," which I am 
happy to say I have found not a difficult task. I am 
afraid I shall have to run over to Ireland for a few 
days in September to verify some of Froude's refer- 
ences. It is a great bore to me that my new book 
will lead to a personal quarrel, and the length of the 
Irish part (about 330 pages in a book of about 1200) 
is very disproportionately great; but I cannot help it, 
and want, at any literary sacrifice, to put on record, 
once for all, what I believe to be the true version of 
the facts of this part of Irish history.' 

Students of the 'History' cannot fail to realise the 
immense trouble Lecky took to disentangle the truth 
in every detail of the subject he was dealing with, 
never slurring over any difficulty, sparing no pains 
in sifting the original sources and bringing to bear on 
all matters his judicial impartiality. 

In the early summer of that year Queen Sophia of 
the Netherlands died. In a letter of May 24 (on 
which Lecky wrote 1' ultima') she asked him and his 
wife, as usual, to stay with her at the House in the 
Wood. She wrote in low spirits and spoke of increasing 
ill-health. It was settled they should go in the middle 
of June, but on the 3rd of that month the Queen died. 
She had bravely struggled against her ailments and 
the troubles of life, but now a few days' severe illness 



DEATH OF QUEEN SOPHIA 135 

carried her off. The death of so remarkable a per- 
sonality could not but leave a great blank in many- 
spheres and in the lives of those who had enjoyed her 
friendship. To Lecky she had proved a very kind 
and faithful friend, and he admired her and was much 
attached to her. As early as 1873 she wrote, after 
one of his visits: 'I am very grateful for your letters 
and kind expressions, and sincerely hope the little I 

could do for dear and for you may give you some 

wish to return to a place where you are appreciated 
and loved as few are I assure you.' She admired his 
intellect and his character, and the fact that he by 
no means always agreed with her views did not 
diminish her affection for him. She had been much 
interested in all his ways of thinking. She had read 
his 'Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland' as well as 
his other books, had followed his controversy with 
Mr. Froude in Macmillan's Magazine, and she was 
looking forward to the publication of his ' History.' 
The historian of Holland, Motley, who had been a 
great friend of the Queen, died a few days before her. 
Lecky had a sincere friendship and regard for him and 
had seen much of him, especially of late years, when 
sorrow and illness had cast a deep shadow over his 
life. He went to the funeral, and joined his wife at 
The Hague soon after. He wrote to Mr. Bowen from 
The Hague (June 22, 1877): 'It is impossible to 
express how melancholy this is with nearly everyone I 
know in deep mourning, only one subject on every 
lip, the streets hung with flags with black streamers, 
and the coffin lying in the great hall in which we had 
our wedding breakfast.' 

(To Mr. Booth.) Nimegue: July 12, 1877. — 'I am 
at last under way for Switzerland. We spent a fort- 



136 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

night at The Hague, which was as gloomy as any place 
I have ever seen. I was really extremely fond of the 
Queen, who was always most good to me, and the long 
interval between death and burial and all the acces- 
sories made it more than commonly gloomy. Her 
palace shut up, to remain uninhabited probably for 
many years, . . a beautiful garden she loved so much 
already getting overgrown with weeds, the swans she 
daily fed wandering listlessly and neglected about.' . . . 

Four years later he was asked by the last surviving 
son of Queen Sophia — then Prince of Orange — to 
write her life, but for various reasons he could not 
undertake the task. 

Part of the summer was spent at St. Moritz, where 
Mr. and Mrs. Lecky and her sister, who accompanied 
them, saw much of Madame Ristori, who was no less 
fascinating in private life than she had been on the 
stage. 'An old flame of mine/ he wrote to Mr. Bowen, 
'the great actress Ristori, is here, and it gives me much 
pleasure to make her acquaintance and that of an 
extremely beautiful daughter who is with her/ 

Lecky loved Alpine nature, and long mountain 
walks were to him the most exhilarating of pleasures. 
He did not follow the rules of practised mountaineers, 
and he used to run down long grassy slopes with great 
rapidity, maintaining that it tired him less than a 
slow descent; and when his companions were labo- 
riously toiling downwards he was seen resting in an 
enviable position at the foot of the mountain. 

They returned by Friedrichshafen, on the Lake of 
Constance, where Queen Sophia's half-brother, the 
late King of Wurtemberg, had invited them to stay; 
and early in September Lecky went back to England, 
intending to go to Ireland to verify some references. 

He remained in London for some days working 



FIRST VOLUMES OP THE 'HISTORY ' 137 

hard at very difficult proofs relating to Irish history 
at the time of the 1641 Rebellion and of the Revolu- 
tion, requiring reference to numbers of obscure books 
and pamphlets. At the same time he saw a good many 
friends and took a long walk with Mr. Carlyle, who 
appeared to be extremely well. 

' We got all the way to Regent's Park/ wrote Lecky. 1 
' He was only for a fortnight away — at Miss Bromley's 
— and seems to have spent his time reading French 
novels. ... C. says he has seen no one he knows 
for a long time, but seemed in good spirits and talked 
very well. "The two things I think most of are the 
stars and the little children." . . . People here are, of 
course, exuberant about their beloved Turks. 2 As Mr. 
Villiers says, "English people always take a sporting 
view of foreign politics." ' 

In Dublin Lecky found, to his regret, that all the 
libraries were closed, and that the most important 
MSS. of his period had been removed out of Sir Bernard 
Burke's jurisdiction from the Castle to the Four Courts. 
'I am making out,' he wrote from the Dublin Record 
Office, 'one or two difficult matters in my MSS. I 
found a quotation in Froude which seemed quite 
inconsistent with one of my views, and was anxious 
to get to the bottom of it, but find that I was quite 
right, ... he quite suppressing . . . what is inconsistent 
with his view.' 

The first two volumes of the 'History' appeared in 
January 1878, and were at once recognised as a stand- 
ard work. The Times, in reviewing them at length, 
spoke of them as a 'very remarkable' and 'admirable 
book.' In the preface Lecky explains that his aim 



1 To his wife. 

2 The Turks had been having some successes in the war. 



138 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

was not to write a history year by year or to give a 
detailed account of battles or of the minor political 
incidents, but 

' to disengage from the great mass of facts those which 
relate to the permanent forces of the nation or which 
indicate some of the more enduring features of national 
life. The growth or decline of the monarchy, the 
aristocracy, and the democracy; of the Ghurch and of 
Dissent; of the agricultural, the manufacturing, and 
the commercial interests; the increasing power of 
Parliament and of the Press; the history of political 
ideas, of art, of manners, and of belief; the changes 
that have taken place in the social and economical 
condition of the people; the influences that have 
modified national character ; the relations of the mother 
country to its dependencies and the causes that have 
accelerated or retarded the advancement of the latter 
form the main objects of this book. 

'In order to do justice to them within moderate 
limits it is necessary to suppress much that has a 
purely biographical, party, or military interest, and 
I have also not hesitated in some cases to depart 
from the strict order of chronology. The history of 
an institution or a tendency can only be written by 
collecting into a single focus facts that are spread over 
many years, and such matters may be more clearly 
treated according to the order of subjects than accord- 
ing to the order of time/ 

The philosophy of history had been from early days, 
and always remained, Lecky's favourite and special 
subject. 'The quarrels of statesmen and party con- 
flicts which are now dead and gone, and which involved 
no permanent principle/ were subjects which did not 
interest him, although they had necessarily to be 
touched upon. He felt that a good book should con- 
tain original thought. 



THE IRISH CHAPTERS 139 

'I had thought a good deal on religious questions/ 
he wrote to Mr. Bowen (January 9, 1878), 'and put 
what I thought into my former books. I have also 
thought a good deal on politics, and it is to find a 
repository for those thoughts that I have written this 
book. If I had gone on with my old subjects, though 
there would have been new facts, there would not 
have been to any considerable extent new thoughts or 
views. I did not, however, originally intend my 
present work to be as full or detailed as it has almost 
insensibly become.' 

'I do not think/ he wrote to Mr. Booth (February 1, 
1878), 'I have any reason, so far, to be dissatisfied 
with the progress of my book. I asked a few days 
after its publication, and about nine hundred copies 
had been sold, which is about the same number as 
were sold a few days after the appearance of my 
"Morals." A good many people — some of the 
people whose opinions I value — seem much pleased 
with it; among others Reeve of the Edinburgh, who 
says he means to review it himself; Dean Stanley, and 
(very much to my surprise) Carlyle, who has read it 
all. ... I suppose before long it will get me into the 
hot water that usually awaits my books. I am sorry 
my, Irish chapters bore you, for I took great pains 
with them, and am (to say the truth) rather proud of 
them. I venture to think they are the first serious 
attempt to analyse the political and social state of 
Ireland somewhat philosophically; and if they are 
disproportionately long and detailed, you must re- 
member, first, that a great part of them is quite new; 
and, secondly, that I had to prove, often from very 
recondite sources, positions which are in direct oppo- 
sition to the best English authorities. Besides Clar- 
endon, Hume, and many old writers, the story of a 
general St. Bartholomew Massacre in 1641 is repeated 
by Hallam, by Goldwin Smith, and by Green; while 
my story of the Jacobite Parliament of 1689 is in 
direct opposition to Macaulay. The question how 



140 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

far the penal laws were acted upon is one still grimly- 
contested, and it is only by collecting particular cases 
that a reasonable judgment can be formed. As for 
the Froude controversy, it has been as disagreeable 
to me as anything could well be, and I am perfectly 
aware that it impairs the artistic character of my 
book. But Froude's book is the only considerable 
book on Irish history read in England. It is the 
source of nearly everything on Irish history that has 
of late years been written here and, I believe, in Amer- 
ica. It is written with very great power, and its 
single object is to blast the character of the people, 
representing them as hopelessly, irredeemably bad, 
justifying every past act of oppression, and trying 
to arouse to the utmost, sectarian passions both against 
and among them. I believe no one else in Ireland 
could do anything very considerable to supply an 
antidote, for I happen to have the ear of the English 
public, and I am one of the very few persons in Ireland 
who have the patience to go through the original doc- 
uments and who are not (I hope at least) under the 
influence of some overpowering craze. I have always 
hoped to get through my literary life without a quarrel, 
but I believe that in putting on record my views about 
Mr. Froude's book and the grounds on which those 
views are based I am doing some real service to history, 
to the cause of truth, and to the reputation of Ireland. 
Nothing I have ever written has been so painful to me 
to write, and no one could wish more than I do, as a 
general rule, to keep history clear of personal con- 
troversy.' 

This letter fully explains the reasons why Lecky 
devoted a disproportionate space in his 'History' to 
Ireland, for which he has been sometimes criticised. 
He always took a very high view of the task of the 
historian. The public, he said, had no time or oppor- 
tunity to go to the original sources, and the historian 



RECEPTION OP THE ' HISTORY' 141 

was therefore all the more bound to sift these sources 
and to interpret them with the most scrupulous hon- 
esty and truthfulness; and the greater his literary- 
skill, the greater his responsibility. 

He was particularly gratified at hearing from vari- 
ous quarters that his Irish chapters were much ad- 
mired, as they formed the part of his book which he 
considered the most original and which he prized and 
cared for the most. As for his criticisms on Mr. 
Froude's 'English in Ireland/ they led to no quarrel. 
They were irrefutable, and he and Mr. Froude were 
both men of the world who knew how to keep their 
historical divergences, however serious they might be, 
out of social intercourse. 

The 'History' was more extensively and more fa- 
vourably reviewed than any of Lecky's previous works. 
It was warmly received in America, and was at once 
translated into German by Dr. Lowe. 

Lecky's fairness in dealing with the facts of Irish 
history was gratefully recognised by his fellow-coun- 
trymen, and not least so by the educated Irish Roman 
Catholics. Sir John Pope Hennessy reminded him 
of their meeting. 'Possibly you have forgotten it/ 
he wrote (from Hong Kong 1 ), 'but as I read your 
sixth and seventh chapters I felt no small satisfaction 
in thinking that at all events I had made your ac- 
quaintance'; and he spoke of 'the delight and grati- 
tude' with which men like himself had read the work. 
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's appreciation was a fore- 
gone conclusion. Ever since he had read Lecky's 
early 'Leaders' in 1861 he had felt 'respect and good 
will' for him. In sending him his 'Young Ireland/ 
in 1880, he expressed on the first page his 'profound 



1 He was Governor of Hong Kong at the time. 



142 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

respect for his [Mr. Lecky's] gifts and the use he has 
made of them as an historian.' 

Mr. Aubrey de Vere sent his 'warmest thanks as an 
Irishman for the noble defence you have made in your 
recent "History." The unwearied assailants of Ire- 
land will find in that work what they can never con- 
fute. ... It is just the work I wanted to see written, 
and I know no one who could have written it in a 
manner so felicitous and useful.' 

To a different category of readers belonged Sir 
Henry Taylor, whose judgment was that of a detached 
literary critic, one of the best of the time — perhaps 
of any time. In a charming and characteristic letter 
he said that for several months he had been reading 
the 'Eighteenth Century' and nothing else, and that 
he had only now finished the first volume. 

' You will perhaps wonder as much at the limitation 
of my reading as I at the boundless extension of yours. 
I am going on in my slow, brooding way with the 
second volume, but as I may die before I come to the 
end of it I feel a wish to thank you now. The pleasure 
and interest I have taken in what I have read is far 
beyond what I expected when I began, and I think, 
in parts of it, beyond what I have ever taken in other 
histories. My expectations, indeed, were very much 
lowered by the announcement of your design, in so 
far as it was to reject the personalities of history. My 
own predilection is for historical biography, taking 
some eminent centre and gathering history round 
about it. Yours is for the reverse. But you have 
made the life of a people for a century as living an 
object of interest as if it was one great man.' 

Sir Henry asked about the reception of the book, 
being, as he said, very much out of the way of knowing 
anything; and he called Lecky's attention to an article 



REVIEW BY MR. O'NEILL DAUNT 143 

he had written about the Irish poet Edmund Armstrong 
in the Edinburgh Review of July, which also contained 
a review of the 'Eighteenth Century.' Lecky replied 
that he was very proud of having furnished Sir Henry's 
chief reading for so long. 

'About the reception of the book concerning which 
you kindly ask, I do not think I have any reason to 
complain. Both here and in America it has been very 
favourably (though usually very feebly) reviewed, 
and it is already being translated into German. It 
had the misfortune of appearing at the worst possible 
moment, when political excitement and commercial 
depression were at their height, and when publishers 
say that the sale of nearly all books had sunk to an 
almost unprecedented extent. Still, as an edition of 
2500 copies is likely, I believe, to be exhausted by the 
end of this year or early in next year, the sale cannot 
be said to have been very bad, and my publishers are 
content. Please excuse all this egotism, but your 
questions make it necessary. ... I am very glad to 
hear you have been writing in the Edinburgh. . . . 
There is something very graceful and touching in the 
oldest of contemporary poets thus scattering flowers 
on the tomb of the youngest. It was a sad pity that 
Armstrong died so young, for, both in prose and verse, 
what he wrote seemed full of promise. We were at 
college together, but he was two or three years my 
junior, and I never knew him. I hope the autobiog- 
raphy is by this time finished.' 

Among many appreciative letters which he received 
in the course of time there was one from Mr. O'Neill 
Daunt, 1 who had reviewed his earliest historical book, 

1 Mr. W. J. O'Neill Daunt He wrote Personal Recollec- 

had been private secretary to tions of O'Connell and other 

O'Connell and associated with books on Ireland. Though 

Butt's Home Rule movement. differing; from Mr. O'Neill 



144 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLB LECKY 

the 'Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland.' Lecky's 
acknowledgment, which is so characteristic of him, 
may be appreciated by young authors. 

April 7, 1879. — 'Dear Sir, — I must thank you 
most sincerely both for writing and for sending me your 
very kind review of my book. It is now, I am afraid, 
little less than eighteen years since you wrote in a 
Cork newspaper about a little anonymous book of 
mine (which scarcely anybody then read) what I 
believe I may call the very first really appreciative 
review I have ever had; and though there have since 
then been many reviews of my books, which have 
made a good deal of noise in the world, I doubt whether 
there has been any which gave me so much pleasure. 
I rejoice to find that you, who even then had so long 
a literary career behind you, are still able to write so 
vigorously, still willing to write so kindly about my 
performances.' 

Daunt on the Home Rule of the old Repealers, and he 
question, Lecky had a great represented a type of National- 
respect for him. As he wrote ist which is now rapidly passing 
to Miss Daunt in a letter which away. It is a type which was 
prefaced a memoir of her not without its defects .and 
father, ' From his long personal limitations, but it was pure, 
intercourse with O'Connell, honest, disinterested, and, in 
your father perpetuated, per- my opinion, Irish life is much 
haps more faithfully than any the poorer for its loss.' 
other Irishman, the traditions 



CHAPTER VI 

1878-1882. 

Portrait by Watts — Visit to Oxford — Italian Lakes — Swit- 
zerland — Visit to Professor Tyndall — Senior's ' Conversa- 
tions ' — Spencer Walpole's 'History' — Irish university 
education — The Hague — Ireland — Dublin University 
degree — Mr. Gladstone on the Evangelical Movement — 
Reply in the Nineteenth Century — Reads MSS. in Dublin 
Castle and Four Courts — Death of Mr. Bowen — Henry 
Brooke — Letters to Mr. O'Neill Daunt — M. Renan — 
Visit to Tennyson — Carlyle — Dissolution — More letters 
to Mr. O'Neill Daunt — Carlyle's death — 'Reminiscences' 
— Carlyle Memorial — Irish Land Act, 1881. — Mr. 
O'Neill Daunt's 'Catechism of the History of Ireland' — 
Mr. Richard Brooke's 'Hymns.' 

After the publication of the first two volumes of the 
'History' Lecky found that the long strain of work 
had somewhat weakened his eyes, and though his 
oculist reassured him, saying they were on the whole 
a remarkably good 'pair of optics,' they continued to 
give him trouble every now and then, and he had to 
regulate his work in such a way as to do all he wanted 
without overtaxing them. There were, however, 
times that he was not his own master. 'Though I 
work steadily,' he wrote to Mr. Bowen, ' I do not really 
work very hard till it comes to the proof-sheet period. 
One cannot then take one's own time, and as my last 
two volumes were very long, I was writing at the end 
of them while I was printing the beginning.' 
11 145 



146 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The struggle between Russia and Turkey was the 
all-engrossing subject in the winter of 1877-1878, and 
was keenly watched. The situation was critical, for 
the country and the Cabinet were extremely warlike, 
and there was every fear of England drifting into war. 
Lecky was among those who felt strongly that it would 
have been quite unjustifiable. 1 

In the course of the winter he gave sittings to Mr. 
Watts, who had asked to do a portrait of him. Lecky 
was difficult to do, and, in spite of all the pains Mr. 
Watts took, the likeness is not as characteristic as 
that of most of the great painter's portraits. Lecky 
had a sincere admiration for Mr. Watts, and much 
enjoyed the conversations about art which they had 
during the sittings. He was struck by Mr. Watts 
observing that the study of English portraits had con- 
vinced him that in different periods the English face 
had been marked by different characteristics; the 
faces of the age of Elizabeth having been eminently 
structural, with prominent bone ridges, while from 
the Restoration to the end of the eighteenth cen- 
tury the bones in faces are almost invisible, as shown in 
the portraits by Reynolds and Gainsborough. Watts 
found that in the present generation the faces of re- 
markable men had in a great degree returned to the 
Elizabethan type. Lecky's portrait was in the Acad- 
emy Exhibition in the spring of 1878, and is now in 
the National Portrait Gallery. 

(To Mr. Booth.) March 18, 1878. — ' We have been 
going out a great deal in the evenings — in fact, rather 
too much for my taste — and between my weekly 
visits to Carlyle and my sittings to Watts for my 



1 The situation remained serious till the Berlin Congress in 
the following summer settled matters for the time. 



VISIT TO THE MASTER OF BALLIOL 147 

portrait my afternoons have also been much taken up. 
I am trying to get on with my new volume, but find it 
very hard work, and am not very well, which always 
makes me languid, idle, and incapable. I suspect I 
shall not really get into it till we settle down here in 
October. A number of newspaper reviews have come 
in, nearly all favourable, but very superficial. Most 
of my friends seem to like my new book a good deal, 
but politics absorb all general attention, and Sir E. 
May tells me that Murray even said that it is useless 
publishing a book till the Eastern Question is settled. 
However, in the first six or seven weeks rather more 
than a thousand copies were sold, and Garlyle tells 
me that it was only in the third year that his " French 
Revolution" got to the second edition, though the 
first was only a thousand copies.' 

He paid at that time a visit to the Master of Balliol 
(Dr. Jowett), and was much struck with the change 
that was coming over the old university, as the follow- 
ing letter shows. 

(To Mr. Bowen.) March 27, 1878. — ' Oxford was 
very cold, and we left it covered with snow; but it is 
always interesting, and I saw a good many distinguished 
scholars there, some of whom I did not know. It is 
curious to see the rapid secularisation of Oxford: 
chapel no longer compulsory, fellowships all thrown 
open to laymen, and questions concerning the truth 
of Christianity, the existence of God, and the immor- 
tality of the soul the almost usual subject of unre- 
stricted discussion. A strange seething seems going 
on, and when one considers that the present of a uni- 
versity is in a great measure the future of a nation, 
it is perplexing to think what is coming. There seems 
a breaking up here of old beliefs hardly paralleled since 
the Reformation — perhaps even since the decadence 
of paganism. I am glad you like my book. Some- 
where about 1200 copies have so far been sold; but 



148 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

most of the reviews, though generally favourable, 
have been weak and very superficial. ... I greatly 
doubt whether I can finish my "Century" in two vol- 
umes more. The last two cost me more than six 
years of hard work — and, alas! I was forty yesterday. 
How time slips away! I cannot get fairly adrift in 
my new volumes, and suspect I shall do little till we 
are settled here in October. In the beginning of May 
we mean to go to the North of Italy.' 

He went with his wife to the Italian Lakes and 
Venice, and found the Lake of Como bathed in sunshine 
and in all the exuberance of spring vegetation. 

(To Mr. Booth.) Venice: June 7, 1878. — 'We 
spent a very delightful fortnight lately at Cadenabbia, 
on the Lake of Como, which I never saw looking more 
beautiful: the villas and statues festooned with roses, 
camellias growing in large trees and in full bloom, and 
such a multitude of nightingales as I never before heard. 
It was a very pleasant, idle, languid kind of existence, 
with a hot sun but a cool air, and a good many rather 
pleasant people. Among others we had a Canadian 
judge who knew Gold win Smith well, and who after- 
wards sent me a large Canadian amethyst as a sou- 
venir of our meeting.' 1 

At Venice they met his stepmother and sister, who 
had gone to live abroad for some years. After spend- 
ing the mornings in museums and churches, drinking 
in the beauty of all that art offers in Venice, they 
enjoyed nothing so much during the hot summer days 
as the fresh breezes on the Lido. They went on to 
Switzerland, and from Aigle, in the Rhone valley, 
Lecky made an expedition of a few days to the Belalp, 
which he thought 'a wonderfully beautiful and at 



Judge Gowan, afterwards Senator Sir James Gowan. 



VISIT TO KNOWSLEY 149 

the same time pleasant place, a very good hotel, situ- 
ated right on the largest glacier in Switzerland and in 
the very heart of the snow mountains.' He was glad 
to find his friends the Tyndalls, who had a charming 
little house there, and were very kind and hospitable 
to him. On the way home they saw the Paris Exhi- 
bition — the first of those huge exhibitions which it 
is impossible from their size to see with any satisfac- 
tion. France struck him, on the whole, as coming 
out much the best, 'for in nearly everything that 
depends on taste and delicacy of workmanship she is 
in the first line, while in many she is unrivalled/ 
That summer his university wished to confer the hon- 
orary degree on him; but as, owing to his absence, 
the news did not reach him till too late, the ceremony 
was put off till the following summer. 

He was back in England in October, and wrote to 
Mr. C. Bowen, after a visit to Knowsley: 

October 15, 1878. — 'We spent a few days pleas- 
antly there. Part of the time there was nobody with 
us except Mr. and Mrs. Lowe and a connexion of the 
family, and I did a good deal of walking with Lord 
Derby alone, which I always like much. I always 
come away impressed with his admirable good sense, 
his very wide knowledge, and his complete freedom 
from what were once the superstitions of his party. . . . 
As you are always so kind in taking interest in my 
books, you will be glad to hear that I am already be- 
ginning to print a new edition (which is, I believe, to 
be stereotyped) of my "History of England." . . . 
What I care most for is the opportunity a new edition 
gives for correcting all mistakes that I have been able 
to find out, and in several ways improving my book. 1 

1 He also suppressed a few true, he did not want to per- 
controversial lines about Mr. petuate. 
Froude, which, though quite 



150 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

A German translation has also been already begun. 
... I am trying slowly and lazily to get afloat on my 
new volumes, but have been a good deal troubled with 
weak eyes. The oculist, however, says that nothing 
is really wrong.' 

He had the happy faculty of mastering with great 
rapidity the contents of a book, and this enabled him 
to do a large amount of miscellaneous reading at the 
same time that he was going through MSS. or special 
books for his history. Among the books which came 
out at that time were Senior's 'Conversations,' chiefly 
with the leading Frenchmen from 1848-1858, revised 
by themselves. ' It is a very curious picture, Lecky 
wrote, 1 of ' the political life of that decade, and I think 
most people will be struck with the uncertainty of 
all political prediction which it illustrates ; for I suppose 
four out of every five prophecies made by the ablest 
men in the most advantageous positions came wrong.' 
His own view was that 

'the events of history seldom reproduce themselves so 
exactly as to justify forecast. The endless diversity 
of circumstances and conditions baffle all human fore- 
sight, and the light which history throws in this re- 
spect on the present, if not misleading, is at best very 
fitful and uncertain. But the same types of char- 
acter reproduce themselves much more faithfully from 
generation to generation, and it is much more possible 
to forecast the course they will take and the destiny 
that awaits them.' 2 

Sir Spencer Walpole's 'History' was also published 
that year, and was considered by Lecky as a book of 
'sterling value.' In the course of time the two his- 



1 To Mr. Bowen. 

2 From his Commonplace Book, 1887. 



IRISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 151 

torians were brought together and became great 
friends. 

Mr. Carlyle was eighty-three that winter. He had 
almost entirely given up walking and had taken to 
daily drives, in which he liked his friends to accom- 
pany him, though he was often wrapped in silent 
gloom. 'He is not ill/ wrote Lecky at the time, 'but 
very weak and very melancholy, exceedingly tired of 
life, and, I think, gradually sinking. I drive with 
him once a week, as also does my wife.' 

In January 1879 there were rumours that the ques- 
tion of Irish university education was once more to 
be dealt with. 

'I asked Sir E. May/ he wrote to Mr. C. Bowen 
(January 25), 'if he thought anything was doing 
about Irish universities, and he fancied enquiries on 
the subject must have been made in Ireland to give 
the rumours of intended measures the consistency 
they have. I should greatly regret to see a priestly 
and denominational university which would be sure 
to lower the standard of university education in Ire- 
land and to prevent that mixture of the gentry of 
the two religions which is one of the things most 
wanted. Nobody is likely to ask for or care for my 
opinion, but I have myself a theory on the sub- 
ject. I think the only grievances Catholics can pos- 
sibly have about Trinity College are (1) that if the 
parents of Catholic students do not live in Dublin, 
the students, if they are to attend lectures, must 
either live in an institution where most of their com- 
panions are Protestants, or in lodgings; (2) that no 
provision is made for their religious teaching and wor- 
ship analogous to that which is made for Protestants; 
and (3) that ethics and modern history are subjects 
which touch disputed theology, and that Catholics 
might reasonably ask that some distinctively Catholic 



152 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLPE LECKY 

books should be introduced into those courses. It 
seems to me that the creation of a new university is 
very unnecessary to remedy these defects. I would 
annex the Catholic college to T.C.D., give it an endow- 
ment as the place where Catholic students of Trinity 
College may, if they like it, reside and may have their 
own chapel; and I would endow distinctively Catholic 
professorships of ethics and modern history. I should 
do this on condition that the Catholics should in all 
other respects be simply students of Trinity College, 
attending its lectures and examinations and competing 
for its honours. I think this might very fairly be 
offered. If it were not accepted, I would do nothing. 
It is certainly easier for this Government than for the 
Liberals to deal with this question, but little good is 
apt to come of negotiations with priests, converts, 
and representatives of agricultural peasants.' 

The university project which the Duke of Marl- 
borough 1 wanted was given up, it was said, on account 
of the Cabinet being divided. Lecky was not sorry 
for it, though he wished there was a Catholic chapel 
with priests to teach Catholic students their own 
religion in Trinity College. 

'I suppose,' he wrote to Mr. Bowen (February 21), 
' that most of the session will be fully occupied by the 
interesting squabbles between Churchmen and dis- 
senters about where they are to be buried. There 
are, I understand, no less than five Burial Bills for 
consideration. Old Bishop Phillpotts used to main- 
tain that even in cemeteries it was essential that there 
should be a wall at least (I think) four feet high be- 
tween the episcopalian and non-episcopalian corpses 
— I suppose on the principle that "evil communica- 
tions corrupt good manners" extends to the ghosts. 
The English people are very curious about these mat- 
ters. . . . 

1 Then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 



DUBLIN UNIVERSITY DEGREE 153 

'I was so sorry to hear that Sir G. Hodgson's (of 
Bray) son is among the killed in Zululand. If it were 
not all so horrible there would be something almost 
comical in this Zulu episode happening almost imme- 
diately after we had annexed the Transvaal on the 
ground that their defeat by the natives had shown 
that the Dutch were not strong enough to hold their 
ground.' 

In the spring they went to see their friends at The 
Hague, and on his return he wrote : 

May 2, 1879. — 'We only came back from Holland 
a week ago, where we have been spending a very busy 
but very pleasant fortnight, seeing an immense number 
of Dutch friends, but finding it bitterly cold. . . . 
Dutch society I always find very agreeable, even after 
the kind of society we see in London. People who 
usually know three or four languages quite perfectly 
and have read largely in them all have a large assort- 
ment of ideas, and there is an artistic aesthetic tinge 
about Dutch life which is a good deal wanting over 
here.' 

In June he went to Ireland and received the Univer- 
sity LL.D. degree on the 26th, at the same time as 
that great benefactor of mankind Dr. Lister (now 
Lord Lister). He had an enthusiastic reception while 
the Public Orator (Dr. Webb) extolled his merits in 
an eloquent Latin speech. He and his wife stayed 
at Monkstown, whence he went daily in the usual way 
to read MSS. in Dublin. 

(To Mr. Booth.) Monkstown: July 13, 1879.— 'I 
spend two or three hours every morning on the State 
papers in the Castle, and have also during the last 
ten days been a good deal occupied with an attack 
on one of my statements which Gladstone has made 
in the British Quarterly. Gladstone has been writing 



154 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

to me very civilly about it, and Knowles persuaded 
me to reply in the Nineteenth Century. Happily, my 
article has now gone off, and I hope you will see it 
in the next number.' 

Mr. Gladstone wrote to him (June 28, 1879): 'In 
reading your valuable History, which in nearly every 
sentence commands my sympathy and concurrence, 
I found an incidental statement which, as mere matter 
of fact, I have undertaken to controvert, but not, I 
hope, in a manner which will displease you.' 

Lecky maintained in his 'History' that the Evan- 
gelical clergy had before the close of the eighteenth 
century exercised a dominant influence in the Church 
of England, 'and had completely altered the whole 
tone and tendency of the preaching of its ministers.' 
Mr. Gladstone, while admitting the great influence of 
the Evangelical teaching, contended that this had not 
become prominent till after the Tractarian Movement. 
Lecky, in his reply in the Nineteenth Century, while 
making some concession to Mr. Gladstone as to the 
numerical proportion of the Evangelical clergy, which 
he admitted he had overrated, maintained and argued 
out his position, expressing his belief ' that at the close of 
the eighteenth century the Evangelical movement had 
not only fully developed its principles and its powers, 
but had also become, both in Nonconformity and in the 
Church, the chief centre of religious activity in England.' 

' I am very glad,' Lecky wrote to the Rev. Richard 
Brooke (August 19, 1879), 'that you approve of my 
description of Evangelicalism, for no one can be a 
better judge of it than you are. Mr. Gladstone, in 
a note I had from him when his article appeared, 1 



1 On receiving my article, 1879, 'if it tempts your curi- 
Mr. Gladstone wrote, July 3, osity, you will find perhaps 



THE EVANGELICAL MOVEMENT 



155 



maintained that the doctrine of justification by faith 
" was always treated as raising the opposition between 
faith and works, not between the priest and the indi- 
vidual/' and the Saturday Review, which supports 
him against me, maintains that the habit of mind 
which I have described as Evangelical — the solus 
cum solo — is common to devout minds in all creeds ; 
but I persist in thinking it is much more congruous 
to an unsacerdotal than a sacerdotal creed. I hope 
Mr. Gladstone may now turn his mind to Homer and 
Midlothian, for nothing short of his great name could 
have drawn me into a .controversy and a theological 
controversy, and I much prefer going on in the routine 
of my own quiet work.' 



that the collateral points of 
difference between us are fewer 
than you suppose. I agree in 
thinking that the Evangelical 
doctrine had influenced many 
of the best clergy before the 
Tractarian epoch; and I have 
not said, and do not think, 
that Tractarianism has had 
any great direct influence on 
the preached doctrines of the 
Evangelicals. Into the very 
wide question of the sacer- 
dotal system I have not en- 
tered, nor have I written any- 
where in the article, knowingly 
at least, as a partisan of any 
opinion, but by way of record- 
ing facts and offering sugges- 
tions. So far, however, as I 
have seen, the Evangelical 
doctrine of justification was 
always treated as raising the 



opposition between faith and 
works, not between the priest 
and the individual. Had it 
touched the latter of these 
oppositions, it would hardly 
have retired into the shade 
as it now has retired. The 
preaching of many sacerdotal- 
ists, as preaching, now satisfies 
men of the Evangelical school, 
as I have known in marked 
instances. But I should have, 
wished, had I seen you, to 
quit this ground, and to have 
offered you orally my thanks 
for the great services you have, 
in my judgment, performed 
upon subjects entering more 
profoundly into the purpose 
and scheme of your book, es- 
pecially in your development 
of the historical question be- 
tween England and Ireland.' 



156 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

(To Mr. Booth.) August 5, 1879. — ' I have done 
my MSS. at the Castle and at the Four Courts, but 
I shall not, I fear, have finished my other work here. 
The chief part of it is the Halliday pamphlets at the 
Irish Academy, which is by far the best collection I 
have ever met with. It was made by a gentleman 
who lived at Monkstown and died a few years ago, 
and though the greater number of the pamphlets 
relate to Ireland, the collection includes everything 
that is really valuable relating to the English history 
of the time. I got some of the most valuable materials 
for my last volumes from this collection, and I find 
that the pamphlets relating to the thirty years which 
my next two volumes are to cover extend to about 
280 volumes. No doubt in the British Museum they 
have these and many more, but there it is necessary 
to look out every pamphlet in the catalogue, whereas 
here they are bound in volumes chronologically, so 
that I look through fifteen or twenty volumes a day. 
I have also been allowed to look at the private papers 
of Lord Charlemont, the head of the Volunteers. On 
the whole, I am doing nothing but imbibe, having 
written of late nothing but a little article on Gladstone, 
and I fear this will continue for some time.' 

During that summer in Ireland Lecky saw the last 
of Mr. Charles Bo wen, and the correspondence with 
him came to an end. Early in the following year 
(January 6, 1880) Mr. Bowen died; and by his death 
one of those old family ties and friendships which 
cannot be replaced was severed. In September he 
was again in London. He went through a long course 
of Irish despatches at the Record Office, and then 
spent some weeks at Cannes and San Remo, where 
he met his relations and greatly enjoyed basking in 
the sun by the blue Mediterranean. He meant after 
that, as he wrote to Mr. Booth from San Remo, 



HENRY BROOKE 157 

'to be stationary for some eight months, working 
steadily five hours a day; for this last summer, though 
not exactly idle (as I have looked through, I believe, 
200 or 300 volumes of MSS. and about 100 volumes 
of pamphlets), I have written very little and only 
about fifty pages of print, besides my little article, 
since the end of June. The Irish papers in London, 
though very interesting, are a severe task — eighty 
large volumes, and nearly all important for the thirty 
years I am writing about. However, I have done 
all but about fourteen, which can wait for two or 
three months.' 

Frequently Lecky received letters from those whose 
ancestors or connexions had played some part in the 
history of the eighteenth century. Thus his old friend 
the Rev. Richard Brooke was anxious to know what 
view Lecky might take about Henry Brooke, the author 
of 'The Fool of Quality.' 1 

'Although we may differ a little,' wrote Lecky to 
Mr. Brooke (December 30, 1879), 'about the enormity 
of Whigs and Romanists, I am happy to find that 
there is no real difference between us about H. Brooke. 
You appear quite ready to admit that he received 
money from the Catholic Association for writing in 
their cause. I am quite ready to admit that the 
very sensible views which he so admirably expressed 
may have been his genuine convictions. Clogy's 
account of Bedell was printed from the British Museum 
MSS. in 1862. I know it well, and should have thought 
that it was alone sufficient to convince any dispas- 
sionate man of the prodigious mendacity of the popular 
Protestant account of the massacre of 1641. How- 
ever, on that subject "liberavi animam meam." I 
have said all I have to say in the second volume of 

1 See Lecky's History of Ireland, cabinet edition, vol. i. p. 296, 
vol. ii. pp. 183 sqq. 



158 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

my History, and if people go on repeating and believ- 
ing the old falsehood I cannot help it!' 

(To the Same.) March 30, 1880. — ' I have been 
reading with great pleasure your new book — espe- 
cially the essay on Owen, which seems to me the best 
thing you have ever done. I am sorry you did not 
write more about those Puritan times, which you know 
so well, and about those Puritan divines who now find 
so few readers, so very few admirers. Carlyle tells 
me that Owen's works were the favourite reading of 
his father, but I do not think he himself knows much 
about them. You have also managed to put a wonder- 
ful amount of literary criticism and knowledge into 
the articles on Chaucer and Savage; "Orion" I have 
long known in its earlier home, your volume of poems 
which still adorns my library. The little I shall have 
to say about H. Brooke will, I think, be chiefly eulo- 
gistic, though I must mention his connexion with the 
Catholic Association. His trial of witnesses struck 
me very much, and I regret that I had not read it 
when I was writing in my last volumes about 1641; 
and there is a singularly beautiful passage which I 
find he repeated two or three times in his works — 
about the passiveness of the R.C.s during "a winter 
of seventy years." Do you know his picture of fashion- 
able society?' 

'Where laughter no pleasure dispenses, 
Where smiles are the envoys of art, 
Where joy lightly swims on the senses, 
But never can enter the heart.' 

Little John and the Giants. 

'Unfortunately, however, it is still a long time be- 
fore I can say anything about H. B. or anyone else, 
and one sometimes gets very weary of a book which 
requires for its accomplishment so long a period of 
most exclusive work, so rigid an abstinence from many 
subjects I should like to go into.' 



LETTER ON HOME RULE 159 

To anyone who loved his country as deeply and 
sincerely as did Lecky, the condition of Ireland was 
now one of grave concern. In his youthful days he 
had been able to feel some sympathy for Irish aspira- 
tions, represented as they were by leaders who were 
animated with a lofty patriotism and whose methods 
were untainted by crime or lawlessness, but disillu- 
sion had shattered his early dreams. The leaders 
whom the Irish people had now selected were of a 
very different mould from Grattan, O'Connell, and 
even Butt. They were, as Mr. Gladstone described 
them before his secession to Home Rule, 'gentlemen 
who wish to march through rapine to the disintegra- 
tion and dismemberment of the Empire.' In some 
letters written about this time to Mr. O'Neill Daunt, 
Lecky expresses his views about the Home Rule agita- 
tion, against which he fought so strenuously with pen 
and speech in after years when it became the burning 
question of practical politics. 

December 14, 1879. — ' Dear Sir, — I must thank 
you for so kindly sending me the Nation with your 
letter, but you must forgive me if I say that I entirely 
disagree with you. Whatever else Parnell and his 
satellites have done, they have, at least in my opinion, 
killed Home Rule by demonstrating in the clearest 
manner that the classes who possess political power 
in Ireland are radically and profoundly unfit for 
self-government. That a set of political adventurers 
who go about the country openly advocating robbery 
and by implication advocating murder ("keep a firm 
grip on your hand" without paying rent, in Ireland, 
means nothing less) should enjoy an unbounded popu- 
larity and command a multitude of Irish votes; that 
a popular press should extol them as the true leaders 
and representatives of the Irish race; that great meet- 
ings should be held in which cries for murdering land- 



160 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

lords elicit loud cheers and not a word of serious re- 
buke; that such a movement should have attained 
its present dimensions in Ireland appears to me a 
most conclusive proof that the very rudiments of polit- 
ical morality have still to be taught. There is no 
civilised country in Europe where such things would 
be possible. Whatever else Government has to do, 
the protection of life and property is its first duty. Re- 
spect for contracts, a high sense of the value of human 
life, a stern exclusion from public life of all men who 
in any degree coquet with or palliate crime, and a 
hatred of disorder and violence and lawlessness are 
the qualities that are found in all classes which are 
capable of self-government; and the freedom of a 
country depends mainly upon the success of its public 
opinion in crushing the elements of socialism or an- 
archy within it. Judged by such tests, the political 
condition of Ireland seems to me at present the most 
deplorable that can be well conceived, and the reputa- 
tion and character of the country are rapidly sinking, 
not only in England, but throughout Europe. It 
certainly passes my intellect to conceive how men can 
imagine that they are improving the political condi- 
tion of Ireland by instigating a fierce war of classes, 
or its economical condition by destroying all respect 
for contracts and making property utterly insecure, 
or its moral condition by persuading the people that 
dishonesty backed by intimidation is the best resource 
in bad times. As for the Irish Parliament of 1782, it 
was a body something like the present Irish Church 
synod, consisting mainly of Protestant landlords. It 
had its faults, but it had also, I think, great merits, 
and I have much too much respect for it to doubt that 
it would have applied exceedingly drastic remedies 
to such proceedings as those of Mr. Parnell. There is 
really something too ridiculous in a party preaching 
a furious crusade against Irish landlords and then 
denouncing England for "robbing" Ireland of a Parlia- 



MR. O'NEILL DAUNT 'S VIEWS 161 

ment of landlords — creating by systematic obstruc- 
tion a kind of Parliamentary anarchy in England by 
way of showing how admirably fit they are for mana- 
ging a Parliament of their own ! You must excuse me, 
sir, for expressing my dissent so emphatically; but 
until this new communism is extirpated from Ireland 
or at least branded with the infamy it deserves, I can 
see no real prospect of political improvement. I re- 
joice that there are a few Irish politicians like Sir G. 
Bowyer who venture to speak boldly on the subject, 
and I am sorry that you and I should diverge so very 
widely in our estimate of it.' 

Mr. O'Neill Daunt in a detailed reply explaining 
his views agreed at least in strongly condemning the 
methods of the Land League. 'Pardon this prolix 
letter,' he wound up, 'from an old man who heartily 
admires your genius as well as the mode in which it 
has often been exerted.' Lecky wrote that he was 
glad to find that they did not disagree quite as much 
as he feared. ' I own I do not myself believe in demo- 
cratic Home Rule in Ireland, and I think Home Rule 
which is not democratic would never be tolerated. At 
present, however, the great danger to the country 
seems to me this new disease of communism, which 
when it once passes into the constitution of a nation 
is apt to prove one of the most inveterate and most 
debilitating.' 

On February 8, 1880, he wrote on the same subject: 

'I must thank you for the Nation, with your very 
vigorous and eloquent letter. I must own that, 
whatever may have been the case in other days, Home 
Rule would seem to me now one of the most certain 
ways of driving great masses of property out of Ire- 
land; for what sensible man would, if he could help 
it, leave his land or other property at the mercy of 
12 



162 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

an assembly guided by "the Leader of the Irish 
People" and his satellites? However, I fear we shall 
not agree on that point. I hope something may be 
ultimately done to multiply peasant proprietors in Ire- 
land, which would politically at least be a very great 
advantage ; but the difficulties are enormously increased 
by the attitude of " patriots" about the payment of 
debts, by the strong anti-Irish feeling which the recent 
proceedings of Parnell and Co. have very naturally pro- 
duced in England (which threatens to postpone con- 
siderably the return of the Liberals to power), and 
by the furious hostility the national Press shows to 
emigration, which in some parts of the country is the 
indispensable condition of all economical progress. 
I am glad you have said something about the distinc- 
tion between different kinds of landlords. I am deep 
in the history of the 1782 period, and find the papers 
in the Record Office on that time very copious, val- 
uable, and curious.' 

To Mr. Booth he wrote: 

AthencBum Club: March 16, 1880. — 'I have just 
finished about a month's hard work at the Record 
Office over Irish despatches from 1783 to 1793. The 
amount of material there is quite appalling, often four 
or five long letters a week between the Governments 
of England and Ireland. ... It has thrown back my 
writing very much, for besides occupying all my morn- 
ings, it usually makes me so tired in the evenings that 
I have done very little.' 

In April 1880 M. Renan gave the Hibbert Lectures 
on 'Rome and Christianity.' Lecky, who had known 
him before, saw much of him and his wife, but 'unfor- 
tunately,' as he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'M. Renan does 
not speak a word of English, which restricts a good 
deal the number of persons with whom one can ask 
him. We had him here the other day, among other 



LORD TENNYSON 163 

people, with Herbert Spencer, each of them extremely 
glad to meet the other, but each with the most extreme 
difficulty in communicating with the other.' 

Mr. Spencer soon turned to one of the ladies of the 
company to rest, as he said, from the exertion. M. 
Renan was very pleasant and good-natured, and, like 
all men of genius, very unpretentious. He talked 
extremely well about history, especially his favourite 
subject — the French Revolution. Whenever he was 
laid up with the gout he had parts of its history read 
to him, and he was always struck with admiration 
at the splendid courage with which the people of that 
period met death on the scaffold. 

That same spring Lecky made an expedition with 
Lord Tennyson to Stonehenge, after having stayed 
with him some days at Farringford, in the Isle of 
Wight. There was a great deal of the hero-worship 
element in Lecky's nature, and Tennyson was one of 
the people he most admired. He had made his ac- 
quaintance at the end of the 'sixties, and from that 
time a visit to Tennyson was always one of his chief 
pleasures. On this occasion he wrote : * 

Athenceum Club: May 21, 1880. — 'As I think I told 
you, Tennyson pressed me much to stay at Farring- 
ford till Wednesday, and he then, at the last moment, 
determined (with his son) to go with me to Salisbury. 
We had a charming excursion in the loveliest of 
weather to Stonehenge, Amesbury (where King Arthur 
sent his unfaithful queen), Wilton, and the church of 
George Herbert the poet. Altogether, such an expe- 
dition with such a companion is a thing that will 
always dwell very pleasantly in my memory, and 
makes a really interesting episode in life. Tennyson 



1 To his wife at The Hague. 



164 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

returned yesterday in the middle of the day. Had 
the hotel been pleasanter, I would have stayed on till 
next day, but as it was I thought it better to return. 
I always hate mortally returning to London, and feel 
in a few hours physically, mentally, and morally 
several degrees below my country level.' 

In a few pages of reminiscences which Lecky wrote 
for Lord Tennyson's Life by his son, he describes this 
excursion and how they sat long in the gardens of 
Wilton, which were a perfect, dream of beauty. When 
twelve years later he was one of the pall-bearers at 
Tennyson's funeral in Westminster Abbey the remem- 
brance of this episode rose vividly before him. 1 On 
his return to London he saw Mr. Carlyle at once as 
usual, and wrote to his wife (May 24, 1880) : ' I have 
just been driving with Carlyle, who struck me as better 
and more cheerful than I have seen him for a long time, 
and having just had his hair cut gave him a sort of 
juvenile appearance.' This rejuvenescence, however, 
was but a flicker, and did not arrest the increasing 
weakness. The niece who lived with him, Miss Aitken, 
had married her cousin, Mr. Alexander Carlyle, and 
the baby that was born in due course at Cheyne Row 
was now a source of great interest to Carlyle, who, 
never having had any children of his own, was curiously 
ignorant about children, and looked upon this one as 
a wonder of nature. He used to speak of it as 'our 
baby,' and said it was 'an odd kind of article,' and 
that it was strange Shakespeare should once have 
been like that. 

The great public event of the spring of that year 
was the dissolution. 

'We are here in all the fuss of the election,' Lecky 
1 Lord Tennyson: a Memoir, by his son, vol. ii. pp. 200-207. 



THE ELECTION OF 1880 165 

wrote to his sister-in-law at The Hague (March 27 
1880), 'and people hardly think or speak of anything 
else. To give you an idea of how it pervades every- 
thing, I may say that yesterday we were at West- 
minster Abbey, where Dean Stanley preached a sermon 
on the darkness of the Passion, which he compared 
to the general election preceding the meeting of Par- 
liament, and he accordingly devoted much the greater 
part of his Good Friday sermon to the proper frame 
of mind to be maintained at an election ! ' 

The Liberals were returned with a triumphant 
majority, which Lecky thought would be sufficient 
to make them independent of the Home Rulers, and 
he expected that the new Government were likely to 
deal more firmly with them than the former one. 

'This whole election is a curious proof/ he wrote, 1 
'how impossible it is to calculate or predict political 
forces since household suffrage and the ballot, and I 
suppose it is the first instance in which a party has 
been overwhelmingly beaten at a time when it was 
enthusiastically supported by nine-tenths of the Lon- 
don Press. It shows, too, that the public-houses are 
much weaker politically than was supposed. I sus- 
pect, however, that, independently of a real and very 
proper dislike to sensation policy, mystification, and 
bad finance, a great deal is due to a mere desire for 
change, which will now probably bring about a polit- 
ical fluctuation every five or six years.' 

Lecky and his wife spent part of the summer in 
Switzerland and returned home by Paris as usual. 
Two letters which he wrote at this time to Mr. O'Neill 
Daunt contain much that is of permanent interest, as 
they go to the root of the Irish land troubles and sug- 
gest what might be effectual remedies as distinct from 

» To Mr. Booth. 



166 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

palliatives which are unsuited to the economic condi- 
tions of the country and to the nature of the soil. 

Paris, October 1, 1880. — 'Dear Mr. Daunt, — I 
must thank you for your two letters — the private 
one and the letter in the Nation. Even when I do 
not agree with you, it always gives me great pleasure 
to read what you write — if it were for no other reason 

— on account of the admirably clear and forcible way 
in which you state your case. I do not know whether 
the fact that I am myself — : though on a small scale 

— an Irish landlord biasses me, but I own I take a 
much more landlord view than you do of Irish affairs. 
The standard of public duty in Ireland has always 
been low, and there are great faults of negligence and 
extravagance and arrogance to be attributed to the 
uprier classes; but I have never been able to discover 
satisfactory evidence of the atrocious rapacity, extor- 
tion, and exterminating tyranny which it is the fashion 
to ascribe to them. As you know very well, during 
nearly the whole of the last century the greater part 
of the land of Ireland was sublet two, three, and some- 
times even four deep — a fact which, whatever else 
it may prove, at least shows with the force of absolute 
demonstration that the owners of the soil did not 
exact for themselves an excessive part of its produce. 
The great sum still given for goodwill in Ireland proves 
the same thing, and I have never seen any real proof 
that Irish land is now generally over-rented. Molinari, 
whose very interesting letters in the Journal des 
Debats I have been carefully following, was especially 
struck with the extreme lowness of Irish rents as 
compared with those both in France and Flanders. 
He says that in Flanders the average proportion of rent 
to the value of the soil is, in the case of small farms, 
about double of what it is in Ireland. Unskilful hus- 
bandry, an utter absence of industrial habits, an ex- 
cessive tendency to multiplication and to division of 



IRISH LANDLORDS AND TENANTS 167 

tenancies, appear to me to have much more than 
landlord misdeeds to say to the poverty in Ireland. 
No doubt there are bad landlords there, but, as far as 
I can see, almost exclusively among those who have 
bought under the Encumbered Estates Act, who treat 
their property merely as a speculation, and whose con- 
duct is in general perfectly uninfluenced by either relig- 
ious or political motives. As far as I know, the few 
old families who can still trace their property to con- 
fiscations (in any other country but Ireland a settled 
possession of between 200 and 300 years would be 
deemed a very sufficient title) are in general signally 
moderate. Evictions are generally bad things, but in 
judging them it must be remembered that there are 
still tens of thousands of farmers in Ireland whose 
farms are so small that they cannot possibly rise above 
abject wretchedness, who would continue wretched if 
they paid no rent whatever, and who must necessarily 
pass away (either as agricultural labourers or as emi- 
grants) if there is to be any economical improvement. 
Nothing seems to me more certain than that in many 
parts of the country a considerable consolidation of 
tenancies is the first condition of improvement. Gov- 
ernment, I think, might do much to soften the 
transition; but every attempt of Government and of 
agitators to stereotype the existing state of things 
seems to me directly opposed to the most vital inter- 
ests of the country. I can see very little excuse for the 
present agitation. It seems to me to be in the main 
a skilful attempt to make private greed and the desire 
for fraudulent gain the mainspring of political action. 
It is utterly ruining the Irish character and fast de- 
priving Ireland of every vestige of sympathy and 
respect upon the Continent. How, indeed, could it 
be otherwise when Ireland is the one country in 
Europe in which murder is supported by the full weight 
of public opinion, and in which men who are the advo- 
cates of the most glaring and transparent dishonesty 



168 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

are the most popular and influential representatives 
of the people? So far from things tending towards 
Home Rule, I think you will soon find the opinion 
growing up on all sides that Ireland is unfit for the 
amount of representative government she possesses, 
and that a Government rather on the Indian model 
may become necessary. Please excuse, dear sir, all 
these heresies (as you will, I fear, deem them).' 

Early in October Lecky was back in London and 
at his work, intending to have the third volume of the 
'History/ which was to contain the American Revo- 
lution, ready for printing in the spring. 

' I have been very busy since my return to England/ 
he wrote on October 15 to Mr. O'Neill Daunt, 'or I 
should have written before to thank you for your 
kind letter and to congratulate you on being enrolled 
among the "domestic enemies" of Ireland. I have 
no doubt that O'Connell, and still more Grattan, would 
have been placed, if they were living, in the same 
category, which seems likely soon to include all re- 
spectable people in the country. I see you quote 
Dobbs on the insecurity of tenure in the last century; 
but, if I remember right, there is a passage in his book 
which asserts or implies that the usual system was a 
sixty years' lease. Unfortunately landlords in those 
days did not insist upon prohibiting sub-letting and 
subdivisions ; and as the head tenant generally thought 
it a fine thing to live in idleness, and the cottiers mul- 
tiplied with no regard to consequences, the country 
soon got into a state of horrible oppression and poverty. 
I suspect that if it were possible to convert existing 
tenants en masse into proprietors the same story would 
be repeated and the oppression of the minute landlord 
and the village moneylender would surpass all that is 
ever charged against existing landlords. At the same 
time Government might, I think, assist the better and 
richer class of tenants to buy their holdings, might 



POLITICAL AGITATION 169 

largely assist emigration in some parts of Ireland, and 
might possibly give some indirect encouragement to 
the system of leases. I believe this to be really the 
best system, and all my tenants (with, I think, one 
exception) have them. Beyond this I do not believe 
that a Government can go with real benefit, and I am 
old-fashioned enough to believe strongly in political 
economy as applied to land and in the extreme mis- 
chief of most legislative interference with private 
contracts. It is absolutely necessary to the pros- 
perity of the country that the great majority of the 
tenancies under twenty acres should in some way or 
another disappear. I believe there are still some 
300,000 of these in Ireland. It is also to me perfectly 
certain that nature meant Ireland to be mainly a 
pastoral country, and in the present days of keen com- 
petition no country can with impunity neglect to 
follow the course which nature points out. English 
commercial and religious policy a hundred years ago 
no doubt did very much to create an unhealthy social 
and economical condition, and it cannot be justified 
(though it can be palliated) by the fact that at that 
time every country in Europe subordinated the interests 
of its dependencies to its own, and every Protestant 
and Catholic Government (except, I think, Holland and 
some Protestant States in Germany) persecuted the 
members of the rival creeds. This, however, is his- 
tory, and we have to deal with the conditions of the 
country as they are. For fifteen or twenty years before 
1876, I believe, Ireland was steadily and rapidly im- 
proving. The proportion of comfortable to infinitesi- 
mal farms steadily increased, and the people, judged 
by every possible test (houses, clothes, wages, sav- 
ings bank deposits, criminal statistics), were steadily 
advancing. The redundant poorer population found 
the best labour market in the world (inhabited by men 
of their own language and to a great extent of their 
own race and religion) within ten days of their shore. 



170 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The middle class and the poorer members of the upper 
classes themselves largely of the noblest field of ambi- 
tion in the world — the great Indian and Colonial 
services thrown open to competition. Political agita- 
tion, assisted by three or four bad harvests and in the 
last few months by the laxity and encour- 
agement of the Chief Secretary . . ., has 

fatally overclouded the prospects of the country, and 
it will be very long before they recover. Dishonesty 
and Government interference are coming to be popu- 
larly looked upon as the best way of getting on in the 
world. English investors are rapidly learning to look 
upon Ireland as they look upon Spanish funds. The 
advocacy of rebellion and dishonesty and the apology 
of murder are becoming the chief passports to popular 
favour and influence, and men of intelligence, char- 
acter, and property are likely more and more to leave 
a country so little suited for them. No doubt the 
evil will some day cure itself by its very intensity, but 
the remedy will be a sharp one and the convalescence, 
I fear, very slow.' 

December 4 was Carlyle's eighty-fifth birthday, and 
there seemed little doubt that this would be his last. 
The past years had been exceedingly trying to him, 
for he had kept his intellectual powers while he became 
physically very helpless, his hand trembling too much 
to write. He spoke of his life as contemptible, and, 
being completely detached from the world, he longed 
for death. He dwelt much on the vanity of human 
life and the mystery of the future, and in his own 
solemn way he often repeated the words of Shakes- 
peare : 

'We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep/ 

and 



DEATH OF CARLYLE 171 

' Fear no more the heat o' the sun 
Nor the furious winter's rages; 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages ' 

— lines which, he said, were to him ' like the sound of 
distant church bells.' 

'Carlyle has got very much weaker,' Lecky wrote to 
Mr. Booth (January 17, 1881), 'both in body and mind, 
during the last few months. He has lately given up 
going out and almost wholly given up reading. It is 
very painful to see the extreme dregs of life; but he 
seems to me getting so much weaker that I do not 
think (and, under the circumstances, do not hope) 
that he will last through the winter. I hope you were 
not seriously affected by this anarchy in Ireland; I 
know you had some property in the West. It seems 
to me one of the most scandalous things I ever remem- 
ber in politics, allowing Ireland to get to its present 
state, when nearly the whole of the Irish magistracy 
and such strenuous Liberals as Lords Monk and Emly 
and Sir W. Gregory urgently pressed on the Govern- 
ment in the beginning of November the necessity of 
suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, which would then 
probably have quieted Ireland. Their defenders say 
that even the existing anarchy is a lesser evil than it 
would have been to have Bright seceding and at 
the head of the English Radicals in alliance with 
the Land League. I hope things have passed their 
worst now, as the suspension must soon come, and 
Parliament is beginning to get very properly irri- 
tated at Parnellite proceedings. The Land Bill, I 
believe, will be very moderate. Curiously enough, 
Gladstone on this question is much more conserva- 
tive than most of his party and Cabinet. I hear that 
he is for one "F" only — fair rents — i.e. some court 
of arbitration.' 



172 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

(To the Same.) Athenceum Club: January 21, 1881. 
— 'I think Carlyle is sinking, and should not be sur- 
prised any day to hear of his death. Since Sunday 
he has been in bed, and is in a state of extreme weak- 
ness and prostration. I saw him yesterday for a few 
minutes, and he was just able to say three or four 
sentences — more, his niece said, than he had said 
ever since Sunday. It is strange and sad to see one 
of the greatest masters of language scarcely able to 
construct the shortest sentence, one of the greatest 
intellects of his time with his brain as feeble as a child's. 
We are, of course, here much paralysed by snow. A 
few sledges are going about. Personally I like this 
kind of weather, but hardly venture to say so — so 
many hate it. I agree very much with your political 
predictions. I think that the time must come when it 
will be found impossible to centre practically all polit- 
ical power in this country in a House of Commons 
such as this soon will be. We are going in a few days 
to see Tennyson's play. He took the subject, Camma, 
out of my " Morals. " ' 

At last, on February 5, Carlyle's end came gently 
and painlessly like a fire dying out. 1 

1 Mrs. L. to her sister, water and ether was all he 

February 5: 'Mr. Carlyle died had taken for days. He was 

this morning at 8.30, and hardly cold yet, and there was 

though all life was nearly, or a little colour left in his cheeks, 

seemed nearly, gone out of him The end long expected was 

the last few days, still one perfectly quiet: a sigh and 

feels very differently to-day nothing more. I am glad for 

that he is no longer there. We him that it is all over, but 

went at two, and only saw by it leaves a blank of course, 

the closed shutters that all Reading his books brings one 

was over. We went up to the again near him, for there all 

room where he lay and looked his thoughts are, and he has 

at him for a moment. He really left nothing unsaid of 

is terribly thin, brandy-and- what he wanted to say.' 



DEATH OF CARLYLE 173 

To Sir Henry Taylor Lecky wrote, on February 6, 

1881: 

' Dear Sir Henry, — Mrs. Carlyle has asked me to 
perform in her name the melancholy little formality 
of writing to you about Carlyle's death. There is 
really scarcely anything to be said beyond what you 
already know, except that for the last few days he 
was in an unconscious or semi-conscious state, and 
that the end was so quiet that it was only by hearing 
the breathing stop that it could be detected. It lasted 
much longer than was expected, for this day fortnight 
it was scarcely thought that he could have outlived 
the day. He has been for some time past in a deplor- 
able state of weakness, which was peculiarly unsuited 
to and peculiarly painful in a man of his strong, vehe- 
ment, and impatient character, and no one can feel the 
end to be anything but a relief. He gave positive 
directions that he was to be buried in Scotland.' 

In the face of those directions Dean Stanley could 
not, to his disappointment, claim the remains for West- 
minster Abbey. Mr. Froude, Professor Tyndall, and 
Lecky, having been invited to the funeral, travelled 
by night to Ecclefechan; and a few other friends met 
that same evening at Cheyne Row and followed the 
remains to the station, where they saw them placed 
on the funeral car and watched them till they dis- 
appeared in the darkness of the night. The funeral 
was kept absolutely private, the day and hour having 
only been mentioned to the few who were invited. 
According to Scottish custom, not a word was spoken, 
and when it was over all went their own way. 

Carlyle's greatness was fully recognised in the 
notices that appeared after his death, and this was a 
satisfaction to his friends. 

'You have been out of the way, probably, of most 



174 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

newspapers,' wrote Lecky to Mr. Booth on July 12, 
1881, 'otherwise I do not think you would say that 
Carlyle's death made little impression. It seems to 
me that more has been said and written about it than 
about any literary man I remember, with the possible 
exception of Dickens, and several of the notices were 
extremely able. The Dean, of course, was anxious 
to get him into Westminster Abbey; but Carlyle had 
left the most explicit and formal directions that he 
was to be buried in Scotland and quite quietly, so the 
scheme was at once negatived. . . . Three of us — 
Froude, Tyndall, and myself — went down to the 
funeral, which interested me a good deal. I will 
tell you more about it when we meet.' 

The admirers of Carlyle in London got up a move- 
ment to erect a memorial to him/ and at first they met 
with a great deal of response, but on the publication 
of the ' Reminiscences' it came to a standstill. 

Lecky wrote to Sir Henry Taylor (April 30, 1881) : 

' Dear Sir Henry, — Some of Carlyle's friends are 
trying to get up a memorial to him in the shape of a 
statue by Boehm on the Embankment and a bust in 
Westminster Abbey. Lady Stanley of Alderley asked 
me to write to you and ask if you would kindly help 
us and would allow us to put down your name on the 
committee. The latter does not involve any active 
duty, but, of course, a name such as yours would help 
much to give weight to the movement. Tennyson, 
Browning, Tyndall, Lord Derby, Jowett, Max Miiller, 
are among the subscribers. ... I fear those horrid 

1 A few intimate friends of one could but respect, though 
Carlyle wished at the same one regretted it, she absolutely- 
time to raise a private sub- refused the offer, and so after 
scription to buy his house and a time it passed into strangers' 
present it to his niece; but hands before it was finally 
with an independence which bought as a memorial. 



CARLYLE MEMORIAL 175 

"Reminiscences" have thrown a considerable damp 
over the movement, but I hope that, once it is brought 
really before the public, there will not be much diffi- 
culty in getting the money. I was so very glad to 
hear that you are writing, or going to write, about 
Carlyle, for no one could do it better. The reaction 
about him has been so violent that it must, I think, 
be followed by a certain reaction against the reaction.' 

(To the Same.) May 2, 1881. — 'I do not myself 
care about the honour of a statue, but about the ig- 
nominy if such a project once started should fail. . . . 
The whole matter is, I think, most painful. Unfor- 
tunately, for my own part, it is utterly impossible 
that I could take part in the controversy, for (besides 
the fact that writing articles is quite outside my way 
and experience in literature) I am printing a volume 
of nearly 700 pages of my "History," and proofs 
come in so much faster than I can correct and verify 
them that I am an absolute slave. I am delighted, 
however, that you, who can do it so well, are going 
to write on the subject, and shall read the proof-sheets 
with very great interest. Gladstone, whom I have 
seen two or three times lately, and who is in general 
very anti-Carlylese, was dwelling with great and, I 
think, just admiration on the extreme beauty of an 
image about Carlyle's dying mother in vol. ii. 234. * 

e I don't think the impression of the book will be 
quite as bad when it is read by those who are not in 
London life or fresh from reading reviews. The very 
objectionable parts are all, I think, in seven or ten 
pages, and these naturally at the present moment are 
brought into a very excessive relief.' 

(To the Same.) May 6, 1881. — 'I think you are 



1 'Ah me! Ah me! It was sickle of the moon which had 
my mother and not my once been full, now sinking in 
mother; the last pale rim or the dark seas.' 



176 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

very fortunate in being out of the way of hearing and 
reading all that has been said on the Carlyle matter, 
for it has certainly been neither pleasant nor edifying. 
Carlyle himself was very wrong in writing some things 
he did, and in not devoting a portion of the nine or 
ten years in which he had nothing better to do and had 
the full possession of his faculties to weeding his papers; 
and as for the proceedings since his death, I never 
remember a case in which so much pain and annoyance 
have been inflicted which might have been most easily 
avoided by a little more common sense, high-mind- 
edness, and respect for the feelings of others. . . . 

' The Carlyle Memorial Committee were delighted to 
enroll your name among the members.' 

Lecky, after reading the proof-sheets of Sir Henry 
Taylor's article, wrote: 

May 23, 1881. —'Dear Sir Henry, — I return the 
proofs with many thanks. I have read them with the 
greatest interest, and think the article quite up to 
your usual high level and admirably calculated for 
the appeasing purpose for which it was intended. I 
think you are perfectly right about the soliloquy char- 
acter of the book, and I was struck by the fact that 
exactly the same remark was made to me by that 
very excellent critic Leslie Stephen. . . . 

' I was dining last night at Pembroke Lodge with 
Gladstone, who was wonderfully bright and charming, 
though looking, I think, somewhat aged, and leaning a 
good deal on his stick. He is, I believe, very anxious 
(and with only too good reason) about Ireland and the 
Land Bill; but he manages notwithstanding to be full 
of excitement about the new translation of the New 
Testament and about the criticisms of Robertson, 
Smith upon the Pentateuch.' 

The difficulty in which the Memorial Commitee 
found itself induced Lecky to write a letter to the 



LETTER IN 'SPECTATOR' 177 

Spectator, signed with his initials (June 18, 1881), 
pointing out how unreasonable it was to judge a great 
writer, who had published some thirty-five most 
excellent volumes, mainly, if not exclusively, by a 
book which he did not publish, and urging the public 
to take a saner view of the matter and to remember 
that the 'Reminiscences' were not Carlyle's main 
contribution to literature or his chief title to fame. 

He showed how carefully Carlyle always revised 
his own published works, and that 'although he was 
accustomed to express very strong opinions in still 
stronger language, although he wrote largely about 
contemporary movements and contemporary people, 
the works which he published himself are most remark- 
ably free from anything that could hurt the feelings of 
individuals.' 

'Whatever diversity of opinion,' concluded Lecky, 
'there may be about some parts of his teaching, there 
can be no reasonable doubt that he has been one of 
the three or four greatest men of letters of the reign 
of Victoria; that during a singularly honourable and 
laborious literary life, extending over half a century, 
he has been one of the great " seminal intellects " and 
perhaps the strongest moral force in English literature; 
and that, if memorials are ever to be raised to great 
writers, he has a title to that honour which very few 
of his contemporaries can equal, and which none of 
them can surpass. It would be a strange proof of the 
levity or ingratitude of his readers if there should 
be any difficulty in raising the sum which is required.' 

The letter made a very good impression, but it was 
impossible to revive the first burst of enthusiasm. 
After a time, however, a very fine and characteristic 
statue arose on the Embankment; and if the public 
failed to take all the part that was expected, the gen- 
13 



178 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

erosity of the artist made up for it. His statue of 
Carlyle, wrote Lecky after Boehm's death in 1890, 
was pre-eminently a labour of love, for a warm, deep, 
and cordial friendship subsisted between that great 
writer and himself. 1 

Meanwhile Lecky was working steadily at his 
' History/ 

(To Mr. O'Neill Daunt.) July 17, 1881. —'I must 
thank you for your kind and interesting letter which 
has, I fear, been some time unanswered. I have not 
yet arrived in my work at the time you are so much 
interested in, having but just completed a long chapter 
on Ireland from 1760-1782, a story which I wish I 
could make as interesting to my readers as it has been 
to me. I assure you, however, that I do not attribute 
'98 to the events of '82, and I think that a great respect 
for the Parliament of '82 is quite compatible with a 
great disbelief in the possibility of reviving it under 
the totally different and very democratic conditions of 
the present.' 

In the early spring of 1881 Lecky began his proof- 
sheets, which were very hard work. He always went 
over them most carefully three times, verifying every 
fact and every reference. 'If I can only complete 
this History,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'I hope never 
again to write a book of historical research, though I 
have a good deal to say on other subjects.' 

The Parliamentary session of 1881 was memorable 
for the passing of the Irish Land Act, which by intro- 
ducing the so-called ' three F's ' — fixity of tenure, 
free sale, and fair rents — completely revolutionised 
the relations between landlords and tenants. 

' I was at the House of Commons a few nights ago,' 



Spectator, December 20, 1890. 



IRISH LAND BILL, 1881 179 

Lecky wrote to his stepmother on April 15, 1881, 'to 
hear Gladstone's speech on the Land Bill (which was 
exceedingly fine), and afterwards dined with him at 
Sir E. May's. It was quite extraordinary to see how 
fresh and bright he was in the evening after so great 
an effort. As far as I can judge, the Land Bill will 
greatly increase the probability of regular payment of 
rents in Ireland (and this Gladstone himself strongly 
holds), and I think it will also raise the price of Irish 
land. The facilities given to tenants to purchase their 
tenancies and also to become tenants in fee farm (that 
is to say, to purchase the right of holding them in 
perpetuity subject to a small fixed rent) will, I think, 
prove very useful. Tenancies under existing leases of 
thirty-one years are not interfered with, and that is 
the case with nearly all mine. I am very glad also for 
the clauses helping emigration. At the same time the 
Bill is so complex and far-reaching that I cannot pre- 
tend to forecast all its effects, and I have no doubt 
that it will undergo considerable modifications before 
it passes. Gladstone has asked me to breakfast with 
him (on the 28th) when he returns, and I dare say I 
shall hear something more about it. We have been, as 
usual, doing a good many interesting things and seeing 
a good many interesting people. Among other events 
we went to Tennyson's new play ("The Cup," which 
has been a great success) with Tennyson himself. . . .' 

He wrote to Mr. Booth (April 24, 1881) that Glad- 
stone's speech on the Land Bill 'was very fine, and the 
peroration exceedingly effective, though on reflexion 
there is something a little ludicrous in the great states- 
man assuring Parliament with such extreme solemnity 
and impress! veness of manner that justice is an ad- 
mirable thing.' 

(To the Same.) August 4, 1881. — 'We are going 
to stay for a month or six weeks in a country house 



180 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

belonging to my wife's brother in one of the most 
remote parts of Holland. It is planted in the midst 
of a pond, so that one might fish out of all the windows, 
and is about one and a half hours from the nearest 
(a tiny little village) station. I like, however, its com- 
plete quiet very much, and have got, unfortunately, 
about fifty pages of print which I must try and write 
before coming back. I am just finishing the proofs of 
volume iii. and mean to begin volume iv. on my return, 
and hope to bring both out in March, and then to take 
a real holiday. I was very sorry for the Dean, 1 whom 
I knew very well. It was in his house that I first met 
my wife. But he was himself of late very tired of 
life, and the end was very painless, quiet, and calm. 
I hear that when they told him he was dying his pulse 
at once got calmer, and he dropped into such a quiet 
sleep that they thought for a time he would recover. 
London now contains scarcely anyone except politi- 
cians and doctors, and if Parliament goes on much 
longer the latter will, I think, be very necessary to 
take care of the former. It will be curious to watch 
whether this Land Bill succeeds, for there is a growing 
feeling, I think, that if it does not, the Crown Colony 
system must sooner or later follow. All politicians 
say that Gladstone's management of the Bill in the 
House of Commons is one of the finest things he has 
ever done. I met the other day Sir Thomas Gladstone, 
the elder brother, one of the strongest and most un- 
bending of Tories, and, as I found, an old friend of 
my father's some time before I was born. He once, 
I believe, went all the way from Scotland to Oxford 
to vote against "the Gladstone." My wife, who sat 
next to him, said something about what a wonderful 
man his brother was. "Oh yes," he said, "much too 
wonderful." ' 

The sanguine expectations which Lecky had for a 
x Dean Stanley died on July 18, 1881. 



EFFECTS OF LAND ACT 181 

moment entertained about the Bill under the spell of 
Mr. Gladstone's eloquence and powers of persuasion 
vanished before the reality. 

'You are fortunate/ he wrote to Mr. Booth in the 
November of that year, 'in having got rid of your 
Irish property. It seems to me that the net result 
of Gladstone's legislation has been that there are now 
two predatory bodies instead of one in Ireland, and I 
do not know whether in the long run the Land Court 
may not prove the worst of the two.' 

As a matter of fact, the Act of 1881, by creating 
dual ownership, increased the insecurity of property 
caused by the agitation which it did not help to allay. 
It soon became apparent that the Act was admin- 
istered in a different spirit from what was intended. 
It had been passed on the assumption that excessive 
rents alone would be reduced, but now a wholesale 
reduction of rents took place which was not warranted 
by the custom of the country or by the increase in 
price of agricultural produce. More than once at 
this time Lecky championed the rights of the Irish 
landlords in letters to the Times. 1 In his 'Democ- 
racy and Liberty' he has characterised the Act as 
one of the most unquestionable and indeed extreme 
violations of the rights of property in the whole history 
of Irish legislation; he has described the disastrous 
results of this Act and of subsequent ones for which 
both Liberal and Conservative Governments have 
been responsible, and he uses the prophetic words: 
'It is idle to suppose that such a precedent can be 
confined to Ireland, Irish land, or Irish landlords.' 

Lecky did not leave London till the middle of 



1 Times of January 25 and February 3, 1882. Letters signed 
'L.' 



182 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

August, when volume iii. was printed, and he con- 
tinued to work in Holland in the country house which 
his brother-in-law every summer placed at his dis- 
posal. It was a small gabled house, of the early part 
of the seventeenth century, situated sixteen kilometres 
from the town of Zwolle, where Thomas a Kempis 
was born. Like most Dutch country houses of the 
same period, it was surrounded with a broad moat. 
Lecky always admired the reflexions in the water, 
which were as clear and vivid as the reality itself. 
Woods and fresh-water springs made the place a cool 
summer retreat, and the rural character of the sur- 
rounding country, with its corn and buckwheat fields, 
its picturesque thatched cottages and downs of purple 
heather, was very restful to him after the turmoil of 
London. Though he loved the mountains best, he could 
appreciate the distant horizon of a flat country, the ever 
varying cloud scenery and glorious sunsets. He was in- 
terested in the lives of the peasantry, and was always 
struck, not only with their proverbial cleanliness, but 
with their innate good taste and courteous manners. 

On his return to London in September he wrote .to 
Mr. Daunt, who had sent him his 'Catechism of the 
History of Ireland': 

'You know I do not agree with you about Home 
Rule (which would, I think, be the most perfect of 
all earthly realisations of Pandemonium), and I am 
sorry that you think it right to write (especially for 
young children) in so extremely anti-English a spirit; 
but no one can fail to admire the consistency with 
which you have clung to your flag and the vigour and 
knowledge with which you put forward your views. 
I hope your very honourable protest against those 
who consider stealing and murdering among the higher 
graces of patriotism will do good, though I fear your 
more " patriotic " countrymen will consider you some- 



HYMN WRITERS 183 

what antiquated and backward. I must say the Irish 
people appear to me to have been of late doing nearly 
all that a nation can do to deprive themselves of all 
the honest sympathies of Europe.' 

To the Rev. Richard Brooke, who had sent him a 
collection of Latin and Greek translations of hymns, 
which revived the old memory of the Mariners' Church 
at Kingstown, he wrote: 

October 25, 1881. — 'I am sorry you did not include 
in your collection one of your own hymns which I 
have from very old days particularly admired, that 

God of the ocean swell. 

Of the tempest and the tide. 

I never knew before the authorship of that most 
beautiful hymn — I think one of the most beautiful 
in the language — "In trouble and in grief, O God." 1 

1 In trouble and in grief, O God, 

Thy smile has cheered my way, 
Till joy hath budded from each thorn 

That round my footsteps lay. 

The hours of pain have yielded good 

Which prosperous days refused, 
As herbs, though scentless when entire, 

Spread fragrance when they're bruised. 

The oak strikes deeper as its boughs 

By furious blasts are driven; 
So life's vicissitudes the more 

Have fixed my heart in heaven. 

All gracious Lord, whate'er my lot 

In other times may be, 
I '11 welcome still the heaviest grief 
That brings me near to Thee. 

(Rev.) Richard T. P. Pope. 
He preached his last sermon in the Mariners' Church at Kings- 
town and died soon after in 1859. 



184 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

How strange it is that anyone who wrote prose in such 
a truly demoniacal spirit as Toplady should be the 
author of so many beautiful hymns! I am just at 
present working very hard indeed, being occupied 
with printing another pair of 'Eighteenth Century' 
volumes, which I hope will appear in the spring, and, 
as usual, having a good deal of revision of one end of 
the MS. going on while I am printing the other end.' 



CHAPTER VII 

1882-1886. 

Publication of volumes iii. and iv. of the 'History' — American 
appreciation — Lord Acton — Tour in Spain — Phcenix 
Park murders — Mr. O'Neill Daunt — Dublin — Madame 
Ristori — State Papers — Condition of Ireland — Sir 
Charles Gavan Duffy — Trials of Phoenix Park murderers 

— Tipperary — Jura Mountains — Mr. J. R. Green — 
Transvaal Delegates — M. Mori — Switzerland — Amiel — 
M. de Gonzenbach — Soudan expedition — Gordon — Lord 
Wolseley — - LL.D. degree, St. Andrews — ' On an Old Song ' 

— Sir Henry Taylor's Autobiography — Paris Archives — 
'The Dawn of Creation and of Worship.' 

Volumes iii. and iv. of the ' History ' came out in 
April 1882: they ranged over a period of twenty -four 
years, and great part of them was devoted to the 
American Revolution. Lecky was afraid that the 
Americans might not like this unbiassed account of 
this period. 

' I greatly fear,' he wrote to Mr. Lea before the vol- 
umes were published, 'that you in America will be 
displeased with them, which I shall be very sorry for, 
as I have no feeling whatever of an unkindly nature 
about Americans, but you can hardly expect a some- 
what conservative English or Irish man to write about 
the American Revolution in the spirit of Bancroft; 
and after all it is not a great censure on a nation to 
say that it is apt rather unduly to abuse its present in 
comparison to its past. My next two volumes will 

185 



186 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

be nearly as much about America (they extend from 
1760-1784) as about England, and my reading for the 
last two years has been, to a very great extent, in 
American books.' 

Lecky was much pleased to find that, contrary to 
his apprehensions, his book was extremely well re- 
ceived in America. Most of the American reviews 
were in fact full of appreciation of his fairness and 
impartiality, the thoroughness of his investigations 
and researches, and the new light he had thrown on 
the subject; and it was thought a happy coincidence 
that his book had come out the same day as Mr. Ban- 
croft's 'Formation of the Constitution of the United 
States. ' 

Eight years later (July 30, 1890), when Dr. Andrew 
D. White, President of Cornell University, congratu- 
lated him on the completion of the ' History,' he said : 

'It was only last night that, talking with our Pro- 
fessor of American History, Dr. Tyler, whom you may 
know as the author of by far the best history of Ameri- 
can literature and an admirable little ' Life ' of Patrick 
Henry, he spoke of your work with very great praise, 
and told me that he was in the habit of recommending 
your chapters upon the War of Separation between 
Great Britain and the American Colonies to his stu- 
dents. He said that he considered them by their per- 
fect judicial fairness one of the very best means of 
getting the coming generation of American students 
out of the old manner of thinking upon and treating 
American history, which has led to so much Chau- 
vinism among our people.' 

In England the new volumes fulfilled the expecta- 
tions of the reading public who had been looking 
forward to them with interest. His American Revo- 
lution, his portraits of leading men — Burke, Franklin, 



VOLUMES III. AND IV. OF THE ' HISTORY ' 187 

Washington, Fox, Wilkes, Shelburne — his narrative of 
Irish events in which he was considered unrivalled, 
all found admirers. 'I have only skimmed your new 
volumes,' wrote Lord Acton soon after they came out, 
'but I hope you will not think it presumptuous if I 
write my mind and say that they are fuller of political 
instruction than anything that has appeared for a 
long time. . . . Your account of Burke is masterly and 
you cannot rate him higher than I do, although I 
should wish to deepen the shadows,' and Lord Acton 
proceeded to discuss a few points in detail. 

He thought that Lecky had emphasised too much 
the anti-Christian character of the writings of Montes- 
quieu, Condillac, even Rousseau, and he believed, 
'though the weight of your authority makes me hesi- 
tate,' that the ruin of the French finances was per- 
petrated during the peace; he questioned whether 
Turgot and Adam Smith had promulgated the same 
doctrine independently, but he chiefly differed from 
Lecky in his estimate of Burke. 

' I shall carefully consider the points you raise when 
revising my book for another edition,' Lecky wrote 
to Lord Acton from Paris, May 30, 1882. 1 ' It is criti- 
cisms of this kind which are most useful to an author, 
and I am always most grateful for them. I hope you 
will forgive me if I have a little of an author's obstinacy 
in defending some of the points you have impugned. 
. . . The Lettres Persanes of Montesquieu and the 
whole tendency of the philosophy of Condillac seem 
to me extremely anti-Christian; and although French 
finances had been most seriously disordered during 
the peace, I think it was the American War which con- 
summated the work of Louis XIV. and made them 
absolutely hopeless. Is there any evidence that 



1 On his return from Spain. 



188 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Turgot and Adam Smith were in correspondence or 
that one derived his doctrine from the other? 

'I am sorry we differ so much about Burke's con- 
sistency. According to my view two of the leading 
characteristics of the Burke of Lord Rockingham's 
day were (1) an intense horror of the levelling, equal- 
ising, democratic type of Liberalism which was then 
represented by the Bill of Rights men, and (2) an 
equally strong conviction that reforms should be 
judged not so much on their own merits as with a 
view to times and seasons and special circumstances. 
Such a statesman must necessarily, I think, have con- 
sidered the French Revolution and the contagion of 
French principles the greatest of all political dangers, 
and I do not in the least see that he was inconsistent 
at a time when French principles were in the ascendant 
and when he considered that all danger came from 
that quarter in turning against the Dissenters and 
even against the Slaves. He might surely, consist- 
ently with his principles, think that this was not a 
time to weaken the principle of authority, to encour- 
age in any form the rising passion for democracy or 
to give political power to a class of men who were 
largely leavened with French principles. The story 
about the sinecure we only know from Walpole, who 
was bitterly hostile to Burke; and nearly at the same 
time Burke proved very clearly his integrity by re- 
ducing the salary of his own office and by resigning 
with Fox when it would have been quite easy for him 
to have retained office. Please excuse my obstinacy 
on these points, and accept my best thanks both for 
your criticisms and for your favourable judgment of 
my political views. I can assure you that the letter 
has gratified me greatly.' 

There is, of course, no opinion more valuable than 
that of an able critic who has gone over the same 
ground. Sir Alfred Lyall, writing some years after, 
says: 



TOUR IN SPAIN 189 

'I suspect that your account of the actual causes 
and circumstances that produced the American Revo- 
lution gave a new view of the facts to most of your 
audience — I had just been turning over again those 
pages of your " History " in search of some information 
that I wanted for a special purpose. I had not realised 
until after hunting through several other histories of 
eighteenth-century periods, how much your work was 
needed, and what large vacant spaces in the English 
historical library it has filled up.' 

Lecky was always glad to get away at the time 
when a new book of his was published. He had long 
wished to revisit Spain, and being now free and in 
want of a holiday he started with his wife on a two 
months' tour. Beginning with Burgos and Valla- 
dolid, two typical towns of Northern Spain, they pro- 
ceeded to the Escorial, which they reached on an 
April morning. Snow was still on the ground; the 
country looked bleak and desolate; and the imposing 
mass of buildings full of the memories of Philip II. 
rose gloomy and austere before their eyes. They stood 
in the small room where Philip died and whence he 
could look on the high altar; and it seemed as if the 
fanaticism which inspired so many crimes found its 
explanation in these surroundings. At Madrid Lecky 
enjoyed once more seeing his favourite painter, Ve- 
lasquez. He had had copies made of a few of his 
paintings by the Spanish painter Pineda, who had 
caught some of the spirit of the master. The ' Lanzas,' 
or 'Surrender of Breda,' was one of the pictures he 
admired most in the world. At Madrid, as in many 
other places, he and his wife found friends. A charm- 
ing and clever woman, Madame de Riano, took them 
to the tapestry manufactory, where they saw the 
women at work as Velasquez painted them in his 



190 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

' Hilanderas/ showing how true to nature the great 
artist was and how unchanged Spain has remained 
through the centuries. They attended a sitting of 
the Cortes, and though a commercial treaty is not an 
exciting subject of debate, it interested Lecky to get 
a glimpse of the centre of political life in the country. 
Seville, with its Murillos, its blue skies and orange 
trees, patios and bright costumes at the time of the 
fair, delighted him: 

'Sunburnt dancers nightly met 
With gipsy song and castanet, 
Where the coloured lanthorns gleam 
By the Guadalquivir's stream, 
And the white mantillas flow 
Softer than the falling snow, 
And the deftly quivering fan 
Telling more than language can, 
And the roses in the hair, 
And the scent that loads the air 
Rising from the orange grove 
Where belated lovers rove 
Through the balmy nights of spring, 
When the birds most sweetly sing, 
But not half so sad a tale 
As our Northern nightingale.' 1 

They followed the footprints of the Moors in that 
enchanting spot Granada, went to the palm groves of 
Elche, one of the few places in Spain where Lecky had 
not been, and stopped at Alicante, which they thought 
an ideal seaside place. 

In Spain, as elsewhere, Lecky was an excellent 
guide and travelling companion. He had the true 



1 'Seville,' Poems. Lovers of song of the nightingale is 
nature cannot fail to notice in the South than in the 
how much more joyous the North. 



TRAVELS IN SPAIN 191 

artistic sense; he loved nature and art; he saw the 
world from its humorous side; he was always full of 
thought and consideration for others; and as long as 
he had a corner all to himself, where he could be abso- 
lutely quiet, he minded the discomforts of travelling 
but little. 

' We have had on the whole an extremely pleasant 
journey in Spain,' he wrote to Mr. Booth from Valencia, 
May 21, 1882; 'have not suffered at all from the heat 
(for though the sun is very hot the air is not at all 
sultry), and have found the discomforts extremely 
exaggerated. The worst are the length of the railway 
journeys and the horrid hours at which they begin, 
the perpetual smoking, and, just lately, mosquitoes, 
without the defence of mosquito curtains. Seville 
I think the most fascinating town in its own way in 
the world; Granada one of the most beautiful places 
I know, and the Spanish colouring and vegetation not 
less beautiful than the Italian, and almost totally 
different. ... I have been absolutely idle and am getting 
very impatient to get back to work. We mean to be 
in London on the 3rd of June, and I hope to devote 
the whole summer to Irish State papers in London 
and Dublin. It is not at all a pleasant period to write 
about. ... I have heard very little about my book 1 
except that the edition of 2000 copies is pretty nearly 
sold out. It appears to have gone quicker than its 



1 On receiving, at Seville, a voice from another world, and 

copy of his new book which I can hardly realise, amid the 

had come out during his ab- palms and oranges and amid 

sence, he wrote to Mr. Long- the gorgeous sunshine of this 

man: 'I was much obliged to most charming city, that I 

you for sending my book, have so lately been hard at 

which has duly arrived and work upon a century which is 

seems very well turned out. dead and buried.' 
It appears to me almost like a 



192 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

predecessor. People begin to talk of me as if I were 
another "Judicious Hooker," so moderate, so judicial, 
&c, so I fear I must be growing very dull and am afraid 
that nothing short of some great indiscretion or para- 
dox can save me.' 

One terrible piece of news marred his enjoyment in 
Spain, that of the Phoenix Park murders, which he 
read in a Spanish paper at Cordova. It seemed too 
dreadful to be true, till he saw it confirmed in the 
English papers. He had seen much of Mr. Burke, a 
devoted public servant and a genial man, and he had a 
great regard for him and for Lord Frederick Caven- 
dish, whose appointment had seemed of good promise 
for Ireland. Horror and grief at the crime which had 
deprived the country of the services of two such men, 
and sympathy for their relations were uppermost in 
his mind, while he could not but feel that so heinous a 
deed, which was evidently the act of an organisation, 
crushed all prospect of a speedy improvement in the 
state of Ireland. 

On the return to London he went through a course 
of Record Office papers for his new volumes. 

A letter from Mr. O'Neill Daunt, received about 
this time, again elicited some strong views about the 
Irish situation. 

June 11, 1882. — ' My dear Sir, — I must thank you 
for your kind letter, and am much disposed to agree 
with you that our old landlord Parliament (a body 
something like the synod of the disestablished Church), 
whatever may have been its faults towards the Irish 
people, gave the English Government little or no 
reason to complain of it. So far, I think we are very 
much at one, though you seem to me to exaggerate 
greatly — not the stupidity, which would be difficult, 
but the malevolence of the English Government in 



PHCENIX PARK MURDERS 193 

its later stages, and I cannot at all agree with you in 
thinking Ireland in the present day in the least fitted 
for Home Rule. However, it will be a long time be- 
fore I shall have accomplished the last instalment of 
my book — so long that it makes me dizzy to think 
of it. The more I read of Grattan the more he seems 
to me wise and respectable, and his prediction that 
Ireland would one day avenge the Union by sending 
into the English Parliament a band "of the greatest 
ruffians in the universe" appears to me not the least 
remarkable proof of his prescience.' 

He spent the latter part of the summer at Kings- 
town and Dublin, going over State papers. No one 
who did not live through that anxious period can 
realise the alarming condition of Ireland at the time. 
In spite of the reward of £10,000 offered by the Gov- 
ernment and placarded all over the country, the 
Phcenix Park murderers were still at large, which only 
showed too clearly the sympathy that existed with 
the crime. Landlords and officials were under police 
protection. The Lord Lieutenant was carefully 
guarded; even invited guests could only penetrate 
to the Vice-Regal Lodge with a password and between 
rows of mounted soldiers. Mr. Trevelyan, the Irish 
Secretary, walked in his garden followed by detectives. 
Outrages were still frequent. 1 A feeling of insecurity 
had taken possession of everyone, while secret societies 
were burrowing underground and sending forth emis- 
saries who, as Father Healy expressed it, no more 
minded shooting a man than shooting a crow. The 
O'Connell monument was unveiled on August 15 
under the auspices of Mr. Parnell, and fears of a dis- 
turbance were entertained. Dublin Castle, where 



1 The cold-blooded murder of the Joyce family at Maamtrasna 
(on Friday, August 18, 1882) was a terrible instance. 
14 



194 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Lecky went every day to read State papers, was closed 
that day and, owing to some alarming information, 
specially protected by cannon; but all passed off 
quietly, and neither heads nor windows were broken. 
At the same time Mr. Parnell received the freedom of 
the city. By a curious coincidence, Madame Ristori 
had come to Dublin to act Lady Macbeth. She had 
long given up the stage, but the dramatic instinct 
was too strong for her, and the part of Lady Macbeth 
specially appealed to her. By long and careful study 
she had conquered the difficulties of acting in a foreign 
tongue. She was taken to the Phcenix Park, past the 
spot where the murders had been committed, and she 
was stirred by the suggestion that the scene of terror 
and remorse which she was about to act might bring 
the guilty to confession. 

' For the last two months we have been between 
Kingstown and Dublin/ wrote Lecky to Mr. Booth 
on October 4, 1882, 'and I have been very steadily 
reading for my next volumes. My principal work has 
been a long series of confidential papers which were 
sealed by Lord Castlereagh and which remained un- 
opened for more than seventy years. At last, in 
1876, an Act of Parliament was passed authorising 
Sir Bernard Burke to open them, and he has arranged 
them according to dates, but except as far as was 
necessary for this purpose, they have been entirely 
unexplored till now. There are about fifty card- 
board boxes full of letters relating to the last twelve 
years of the eighteenth century containing confidential 
letters of the magistrates for the different counties, 
and, what is very curious, reports of the different 
informers who were in the service of the Government 
during the United Irishman movement. The whole 
is very interesting, but I fear I shall find it quite im- 
possible to condense my Irish History of the last 



CONDITION OF IRELAND 195 

twenty years of the century into limits at all propor- 
tioned to the other parts of my book. . . . We have 
been seeing a good many people and dined once at 
the Vice-Regal Lodge, which is curiously like a police 
barrack, and the Lord Lieutenant rides out in the 
middle of an escort, much like a Russian Czar. They 
are so careful that there is a password given out for 
every night. On the whole, however, they think 
things are improving here. People are getting tired 
of agitation, and crime has lately been punished. I 
find this side of the water is at least as interesting as 
the other. We leave, I believe, at the close of next 
week, spend a few days at Knowsley with the Derbys, 
and hope to be in London about the 21st.' 

38 Onslow Gardens: January 1, 1883. — ' Dear Booth, 

— My first letter of the year must be to you to ask 
when you are coming to town and how you are. We 
are not stirring, so you will be sure to find me. I have 
been rather busy (besides regular writing) in revising, 
as a second edition of my last two volumes is coming 
out very soon, and a new edition (the third) of the 
first two is printing. If you have not seen the last 
volume of Wilberforce's Life, it will, I think, amuse 
you, though you are not as ecclesiastical as I am. 
There is an amusing description of one of Magee's 
sermons by our old friend John Gregg: "It was bril- 
liant, eloquent, well delivered, but had not gospel 
enough in it to save a tomtit." I saw Mahaffy here 
to-day, and he gives rather a better account of Ireland 

— attributing the improvement mainly to Lord 
Spencer. It is curious how Irish affairs turn us all 
into Tories. My old friend Mr. Prendergast, whose 
"Cromwellian Settlement" is one of the most fiery 
works in Irish history I know, has quite become so; 
and, as far as I can find out, the Catholic gentry are 
at least as much so as the Protestant. We saw a 
good deal of Catholic society this year in Ireland, and 
I was much struck with this aspect of it. I hope you 



196 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

like Ryde. I suppose you have settled there chiefly 
for yachting purposes.' 

Lecky's relations with a few men who differed from 
him on the Home Rule question show how a divergence 
of views on such an important subject did not exclude 
respect, as long as such views were honest convictions 
and not the result of party considerations. Sir Charles 
Gavan Duffy at this time sent him his ' Four Years of 
Irish History, 1845-1849,' and in thanking him for 
this 'important contribution to Irish history/ Lecky 
said: 'It must have been a somewhat painful task 
going over so sad a story, but I do not think that you 
have any reason to regret that you are outside the 
arena of present Irish politics, which can have very 
few attractions to honest men. You have certainly 
verified much more than most men the "coelum non 
animum mutant" of the poet.' 

During that winter the Phoenix Park murderers, were 
at last discovered and brought to justice, and in May, 
when Mr. and Mrs. Lecky were again in Dublin, the 
trials were going on. Judge O'Brien, who conducted 
them, was a man of great ability, high character, 
indomitable courage, and a fervent Roman Catholic of 
the ascetic type. He was a master of quick repartee, 
and the ghastliness of the trials was sometimes relieved 
by that touch of humour which in Ireland is insepar- 
able from even the most tragic situation. For many 
years after he had to be protected, but he bore it with 
admirable coolness. It was a striking revelation that 
the men who had commited the murders were not 
habitual criminals, but belonged to the respectable 
well-to-do artisan class. One of them, Curley, was 
the best carpenter in Dublin, and a well-conducted 
man. There was something very pathetic in his 



TIPPERARY 197 

warning to his friends before he was hanged that they 
should have nothing to do with secret societies. Lecky 
and his wife had, as usual, a very warm reception 
from their friends, Sir Bernard and Lady Burke, Mr. 
and Mrs. Mahaffy, Chief Justice and Lady Morris, 
Father Healy, &c. They made an expedition to Tip- 
perary with Mr. Prendergast, and paid their first visit 
to Newtown Anner, the property of a genial hostess, 
the Duchess of St. Albans, and also to Mr. and Mrs. 
Richard Bagwell 1 at Marlfield on the banks of the river 
Suir. The country was in full beauty, with all the 
hawthorns in blossom and the gardens filled with 
spring flowers; and going about on outside cars was 
particularly exhilarating. No one knew that part of 
Ireland better than Mr. Prendergast, who had gone on 
circuit there in former days and who seemed acquainted 
with the history of every family. Together they 
visited the old castle of Carrick-on-Suir and the more 
modern manor house added to it by Thomas Earl of 
Ormonde, the friend of Queen Elizabeth; Kiltinan 
Castle, the former seat of the Lords Dunboyne, who 
lost it by joining the Irish rebellion in 1641; and the 
rock of Cashel, with its ancient ecclesiastical ruins. 
While stopping for an hour in the little inn at Cashel 
the presence of the travellers became known, and they 
had an amusing visit from Mrs. O'Connell (nee Bian- 
coni), the widow of Daniel O'ConnelPs son, who wished 
to make Lecky's acquaintance. After this short holi- 
day he remained at work in London till the end of July. 

(To Mr. Booth.) July 22, 1883. —'We were in Ire- 
land for about three weeks at Whitsuntide, partly 
owing to one of my notebooks having been lost, or, 



1 Mr. Bagwell is the author of Ireland under the Tudors and 
Ireland under the Stuarts. 



198 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

as I believe, burnt, and I had to give up ten days' 
work in the Castle to replacing it. We saw a good 
many people, among others the judge who tried the 
Phcenix Park murderers, and heard a good deal of 
what is going on. By all accounts, there is a pros- 
pect of immediate prosperity. Crime has gone down, 
prices are high, rents are paid, but disaffection is deeper 
and more confident than ever, and the best judges, I 
find, utterly at sea about the future. I hope much 
that the peasant proprietors may be tried. This seems 
the best chance, for the old agrarian type is quite 
broken, and the character of the people is demoralised 
to a degree that it is difficult to exaggerate. I do 
not think any law has failed more completely than 
the Land Act. We see, as usual, a good many 
people.' 

He went after that for a short trip to Switzerland, 
and stayed at Miirren. He was glad to find that he 
could walk much the same as formerly, 'and in this 
excellent air,' he wrote to his wife, 'one feels wonder- 
fully well, scandalously hungry, and ridiculously 
young.' The chief object of his journey was the Lac 
de Joux, in the Jura Mountains, which he had long 
wished to see. He thought it 'very beautiful in a 
quiet kind of way — charmingly wooded, and with 
one lovely mountain walk and view.' He afterwards 
joined his wife in Holland for the remainder of the 
summer, and was back in London in October. He 
was working at the chapters in his fifth volume, which 
treated of English and foreign affairs, and he was not 
sorry to be for a while outside his usual Irish element 
and to concentrate his thoughts on other portions of 
his book. 'Modern Irish politics, leaders, and ideals 
disgust me so thoroughly/ he wrote at this time, 
' that I confess it is no small relief to me to turn away 
from the subject.' 



TRANSVAAL DELEGATES 199 

He had now lost many friends: Carlyle and Dean 
Stanley had died the same year; Mr. Greg, author of 
'The Enigmas of Life/ had soon followed them; Lord 
Russell, too, had gone. Mr. Green, the historian, died 
in the March of 1883, and a letter to Mrs. Green shows 
how much Lecky felt the loss : 

' The news to-day will make many sad hearts where- 
ever the English language is spoken, but few sadder 
than in Onslow Gardens. I have always thought 
Mr. Green one of the two most remarkable examples 
I have ever known of mind triumphing over body, 
and of character keeping all its brightness and beauty 
unimpaired through long continued physical suffering. 
It must be a comfort to you to know how much you 
have brightened these last weary years, and also how 
much that is noble and enduring Mr. Green has left 
behind him in spite of all the difficulties of his life.' 

During the winter of 1883-1884 the Transvaal Depu- 
tation was in London to obtain a modification of the 
Convention of 1881. The enthusiasms of the British 
public — society included — are sometimes unaccount- 
able. They went into raptures over Cetewayo, the 
Zulu king, but they took no interest in the Transvaal 
delegates, who were in their way very remarkable 
men. 

Lecky had been more or less interested in South 
Africa from the time that he saw much of Bishop 
Colenso in London in the sixties, and he had known 
many of those who went out there either as Governors 
or soldiers — among them Sir George Colley, an old 
family friend, whose tragic fate was a great shock to 
him. Sir Bartle Frere was also a friend of his, and 
while he was Governor of Cape Colony he and his 
family kept their friends in touch with South African 
affairs. In the course of time Lecky became ac- 



200 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

quainted with many South Africans of note who came 
to London, and whom he and his wife were always 
pleased to see; and they were glad on this occasion 
to make the acquaintance of the Transvaal delegates. 
President Kruger and General Smit did not speak a 
word of English and were wholly ignorant of our 
European conventionalities, but Lecky was struck 
with their strong individuality and original views. 
The Transvaal was then emerging from its struggle 
for independence. Gold had been discovered within 
the last few years, much to the regret of the President, 
who foresaw trouble; but Johannesburg had not yet 
sprung up like a mushroom — the Uitlander was an 
unknown quantity. President Kruger was touching in 
his humility. 'We have had the name of being 
cowardly Boers and we have had the name of being 
ignorant Boers/ he said. 'The present generation 
has redeemed our reputation for cowardice; it is for 
the next to redeem our reputation for ignorance.' 
They had a great belief in the future of the Dutch- 
African race, and dreamed of a Federated South 
Africa under one flag. Lord Derby was very civil tp 
them, and gratified them by leaving out the word 
' suzerainty ' in the new Convention ; while the para- 
mountry of England in all that was important — the 
foreign relations of the Transvaal as well as their rela- 
tions with the natives — was maintained. They went 
away satisfied, and much impressed with the greatness 
of England. Many years afterwards — in 1896 1 — at 
the opening meeting of the T.C.D. Historical Society, 
when the South African situation was the subject of 
discussion, Lecky gave his impressions of President 
Kruger : 



1 The year of the Jameson raid. 



PRESIDENT KRUGER 201 

'They [the Transvaal Boers] have at their head a 
man who, with greatly superior abilities, represents 
very faithfully their characters, ideals, and wishes. 
I can speak of him with some personal knowledge. 
He has been more than once in my house, and I have 
come in contact with several men who have known 
him well. In many respects he resembles strikingly 
the stern Puritan warrior of the Commonwealth — a 
strong, stubborn man, with indomitable courage and 
resolution, with very little tinge of cultivation, but, 
with a rare natural shrewdness in judging men and 
events, he impresses all who come in contact with him 
with the extraordinary force of his nature. He is 
the father of no less than seventeen children. He 
belongs to a sect called the Doppers, which is derived 
from a Dutch word for an extinguisher, because they 
are desirous of extinguishing all novelties since the 
Synod of Dort. 1 Ardently religious, he is said to be- 
lieve as strongly as Wesley in a direct personal inspi- 
ration guiding him in his acts. He is a great hunter 
of the most savage wild beasts. One finger is wanting 
on one of his hands; it was broken in a hunting expedi- 
tion, and it is a characteristic trait that he then and 
there amputated it himself. In a semi-regal position, 
and with even more than regal power, he lives the life 
of a peasant; and though, I believe, essentially a just, 
wise and strong man, he has all his countrymen's dread 
of an immigration of an alien element, and all their 
dislike and suspicion of an industrial and mining 
community.' 

During that winter Lecky saw, among other people, 
a good deal of the Japanese Minister, M. Mori, who 
told him the gratifying fact that there was a Japanese 
translation of his 'Rationalism' and 'Morals,' which 
was used at the University in Japan. M. Mori, a 
very able man, returned to Japan soon after, where 

1 This was the explanation given by one of the delegates. 



202 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

he was appointed Minister of Education, and, to the 
horror of his friends, murdered by a fanatic. 

Lecky's advice and co-operation were often asked, 
especially in Irish matters. 

' I had an experience to-day,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, 
March 5, 1884, ' which was quite new to me, having 
been asked to go with Lord Castletown and a few 
others on a deputation to Childers to represent the 
necessity of the Government advancing more money 
for the purchase by tenants of Irish land. Childers 
was very amiable and asked very intelligent questions; 
but I do not think we learnt anything, except that 
the Government have been of late studying several 
plans with this object, that they will probably make 
an announcement in six weeks or two months, and 
that they greatly dread, in a country where the ma- 
jority of the people seem to want separation, con- 
stituting themselves mortgagees of Irish land. How 
Ireland is ever to be governed, or how Parliament 
here is to work or party government to exist when 
we have eighty or ninety Parnellites (which we are 
very likely to have), passes my comprehension.' 

The lowering of the franchise in Ireland, which was 
included in the new Franchise Bill, against the opposi- 
tion of those who knew Ireland and Irish interests 
best, was strongly denounced by him at the time. 
He thought that, though the extension of the fran- 
chise might now have become a political necessity in 
England, it was never likely to do any good commen- 
surate with the enormous evil it would do in Ireland, 
and through Ireland to Parliamentary government; 
and the obvious evil effects that were expected from 
it did not fail to show themselves. 1 



1 See Democracy and Liberty, cabinet edition, vol. i. p. 28. 




WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 
From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry 



SWITZERLAND 203 

The summer was spent in the mountains of Switzer- 
land, at Engelberg, Biirgenstock, Berne, and finally 
at Lausanne, where he always went, from old associa- 
tion, to the Hotel Gibbon. He liked to recall the 
feelings with which Gibbon paced up and down the 
terrace before writing the last pages of the book that 
had been his companion for so many years. 

(To Mr. Booth.) Hotel Gibbon, Lausanne: October 3, 
1884. — ' My dear Booth, — I suppose you, like the 
rest of the world, are now going home after the very 
beautiful summer — and, I hope, much the better 
for the sea. We have been for the last two months 
in different places high up in the mountains in Switzer- 
land, are now going to Paris, and hope to be settled 
at work in London about the 20th. I hope very much 
we may meet there. It is rather a bore all the twaddle 
in Parliament beginning so soon. I am on the House 
of Lords side, but I was rather startled lately by a 
very clever old gentleman who was Secretary of State 
for this country and for some time the leader of the 
Conservative party in Switzerland. The result of his 
Swiss experience is that he is a strong advocate of 
universal suffrage, which he maintains is essentially 
and strongly conservative. Many years ago he wrote 
a diplomatic memorial in support of this view, which 
Bismarck read at Frankfort; and when the present 
German Constitution was to be drawn up, Bismarck 
sent, through the German Minister, to my friend for 
a copy of his memorial, saying he wished to lay it 
before the Prince Imperial, who strongly objected to 
universal suffrage being introduced into Germany on 
the ground that it was a revolutionary thing. When 
the German Constitution was finally settled Bismarck 
sent another message to my friend, saying, " You may 
say of it, 'quorum pars magna fui.'" 

' I hope we are not going into a European war. The 
French and German newspapers are both writing about 



204 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

us in a most minacious way. I have still about a year's 
work, alas! before my next two volumes will be in a 
state to begin printing. I rather dread the winter, 
as my eyes, though not at all organically wrong, are 
weak, and I cannot read much by candle light, which 
makes a great difference to me. However, I never 
mean to write a book of much research after this one. 
It has taken up a great many years of my life. I am 
here in the house on the site of that where Gibbon 
wrote his " History." I heard a gentleman and lady 
discussing what it was that Gibbon wrote ! The gentle- 
man thought it was a history of England; the lady 
assured him it was the " Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire." " Oh, well," the gentleman said, "if he had 
written a history of England somebody might have 
read it, but who would read a history of the Roman 
Empire?" Such is the fate of historians! 

' A very striking book of a rare kind has lately come 
out in French, the " Journal Intime" of Amiel, a 
Geneva professor who did nothing in particular, but 
was accustomed to keep a curious, introspective and 
somewhat morbid diary recording his own feelings 
and beliefs and his judgment of the systems and writers 
with whom he came in contact. It (especially the 
second volume) is quite a chef d'ceuvre of its kind.' 

The Swiss statesman of whom Lecky speaks was 
M. de Gonzenbach, a friend of old days at the House 
in the Wood. He was a man full of knowledge and 
with a very shrewd judgment. He had known many 
of the remarkable men of his time, and he was a most 
agreeable companion and a very kind friend. His 
' Life of General von Erlach ' * was a vindication of 
that soldier's reputation. Lecky and his wife rarely 
went to Switzerland without paying him and his 



1 A soldier in the Thirty Years' War who had been accused of 
taking a bribe from France. 



LL.D. DEGREE, ST. ANDREWS 205 

family a visit near Berne. 1 His eldest son, married 
to an Englishwoman, owned an old castle on the Lake 
of Zug, where Holbein once lived, and which Lecky 
visited with great interest. 

During the winter of 1885 Egypt was the all-absorb- 
bing subject on account of the Soudan expedition. 
Gordon had a hold over the English people such as 
few public men have had, and his fate moved them to 
an extraordinary degree. Lecky described him as 'a 
type of simple, self-sacrificing, religious heroism which 
is in its own kind as perfect as anything even in the 
legends of chivalry.' There was a romantic interest 
attaching to the expedition commanded by Lord 
Wolseley, who not only inspired absolute confidence 
as a soldier and a strategist, but who had endeared 
himself to the English people and to his many friends, 
of whom Lecky was one, by his kindness of heart, his 
great simplicity and sincerity, and his boyish and 
unfailing high spirits. The example of his devoted 
wife, who in those anxious days was always bright and 
hopeful, encouraged many whose husbands were away 
in the same expedition. 

Lecky had hoped to publish the next two volumes 
of the 'History' in October 1885, but, as usually hap- 
pens, he saw 'Alps on Alps arise,' and found that, in 
spite of hard and steady work, he would not be able 
to publish his book before the following October. In 
January 1885 the honorary degree of LL.D. was con- 
ferred upon him at St. Andrews. Lord Reay, a friend 
of his, was the Lord Rector, and had just been ap- 
pointed Governor of Bombay. Lecky wrote from St. 
Andrews : 2 ' All has gone off well. Lord Reay's address 
was very good and well received, and not too long, 



M. de Gonzenbach died in 1887. 2 To his wife. 



206 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

and its delivery was especially admirable, as he only 
arrived a few hours before from London. There are 
a number of very agreeable people here who have been 
very kind and cordial, and I had a pleasant dinner last 
night at Principal Tulloch's. ... It is an interesting 
place, which I am glad to have seen. ... I find myself 
called Doctor to a rather alarming extent. . . . ' 

In the February number of Macmillan's Magazine 
there appeared a poem of his, ' On an Old Song/ which 
took people by surprise, and which was generally 
admired. He had always had a great love of poetry. 
He had been in the habit in boyhood of expressing 
his thoughts in verse, and in leisure moments he con- 
tinued to indulge his poetic fancy. He contemplated 
publishing sooner or later a small volume of poetry 
which he had written at different times, but he was 
diffident about doing it, and wanted to feel his way by 
sending particular poems to magazines. He published 
the verses already quoted on Seville in Longman's 
Magazine, October 1891. 

Among the many books which he was frequently 
receiving from their authors there was one at this 
time which gave him peculiar pleasure — the Auto- 
biography of his friend Sir Henry Taylor — as the 
following letter shows: 

March 28, 1885. — 'Dear Sir Henry, — I must not 
delay any longer thanking you for your great kind- 
ness in sending me your Autobiography. I have 
already spent many hours over it with the keenest 
pleasure, and hope to spend many more. I am not 
a good critic, and I feel strongly how difficult it is to . 
estimate coldly a book which brings with it so many 
personal interests and recollections, but I feel convinced 
that all good judges will admit that no biography 
which has appeared in England for many years has 



sir henry taylor's autobiography 207 

been written in such exquisitely beautiful English 
(to me one of the greatest of pleasures) , and that few, 
if any, contain so much wisdom and so much wit. 
There are, of course, some things in it which, with my 
turn of mind, I should not have published, but there 
is certainly nothing that can give offence, and, I think, 
very little that will fail to interest. If you had been 
born twenty years later your book would have been 
much more a history of opinions than it is. I like 
best the portraits, which seem to me perfect master- 
pieces and make me a little agree with Archbishop 
Whately in wishing you had devoted rather more of 
your literary life to prose. It is strange, though, that 
in describing Mrs. Norton and her two sisters you 
had been so struck with their mental brilliancy that 
you do not even mention their beauty, though they 
were thought the Gunnings of their generation! I 
should hardly have expected this from one who likes 
"any woman better than any man." Rogers' defence 
of his ill-natured sayings I have heard put in a form 
which is, I think, slightly (very slightly) better than 
yours: "My voice is so weak that no one would listen 
to me if I did not say ill-natured things." Biographies 
are generally sad things, for they generally end sadly, 
but this is certainly not the impression which yours 
will make, and there is a great deal in your tone and 
philosophy of life which is well fitted to do us all good 
in this later, pessimistic and somewhat feverish gen- 
eration.' 

In the spring Lecky was again in Ireland, and after 
spending part of the summer in Holland he went to 
Paris to read in the Archives. There he worked in a 
crowded room chiefly filled with lady copyists, and 
found the ink of eighteenth-century manuscripts very 
pale and trying to the eyes. 

He wrote from Paris: 1 



1 To his wife at Amsterdam. 



208 WILLIAM EDWARD HAETPOLE LECKY 

Hotel du Louvre: September 29, 1885. — ' My eyes are 
not as weak as they have sometimes been, but suffi- 
ciently so to make MS. work (which I generally like) 
very disagreeable. I only want to be able to do three 
hours a day, and am quite content to be idle for the rest 
of the day. There is a certain M. Noel, whose French 
school books I dare say you have had to go through, 
who was a secret agent in England and who wrote 
innumerable dispatches in a minute handwriting 
which is now a great trial to me. Except these three 
hours, I am doing, I may say, nothing. ... I went on 
Sunday to St. Cloud, which was very pretty indeed. 
. . . The full tide of electioneering is flowing, and is 
curious to watch. The Socialist element predominates 
in the addresses, and there is a great Socialist meeting 
to-night under Rochefort's auspices.' 

In a letter of October 2, he says that he received a 
request 'to write in the new Liberal manifesto volume 
"Why I am a Liberal," which I have pithily declined 
on the ground that I am going to vote for a Conserva- 
tive.' 

Paris: October 4. — 'My eyes are much better, per- 
haps I may say all right, but I am rather afflicted with 
the extreme minuteness of Talleyrand's handwriting. 
It is as if written with a crow's feather, and I rather 
think I shall buy a magnifying glass on Monday to 
finish it. My Irish papers may give me more to do 
than I know of. I have got some copied out. If 
(as I am inclined to think) I go back the end of this 
week, I shall have at a later period to do a little more 
work here; but as it is only for the seventh volume 
there is no hurry about it. I see that Mr. Eliot 
Norton is going, "by request of the family," to publish 
in America the correct version of the "Reminiscences"' 
of Carlyle.' » 

1 Among the inaccuracies in there was an amusing one 
the book as first published about Sir Henry Taylor which 



PARIS ARCHIVES 209 

Paris: October 6. — 'I finished to-day all of my 
archives that is necessary for my present purpose. 
One volume — a great folio, duly numbered — they 
told me when I asked for it that they simply could 
not find it! It is quite extraordinary to me how 
badly these archives are arranged and catalogued 
and bound, and it is by no means easy to find where 
any particular paper is. They have a very proper 
rule that papers later than 1814 are not to be shown, 
but instead of keeping these papers together they 
bind them with others of a much earlier date, which 
it becomes impossible in consequence to see. One 
of the reserved volumes I found containing one or 
more papers as early as 1763. . . . Everyone seems 
extremely impressed, and most people much surprised, 
at the result of the election, which is the first great 
blow to the Republic since its foundation after the 
war. I hope it may have some conservative influence 
on our own election, but here the first object of Con- 
servatives is to make another revolution!' 

The following letter, written to a friend who wished 
for information concerning the Irish question, shows 
what loyal Irishmen felt about the situation: 

Paris: October 8, 1885. — ' I think you would find 
the "Essay on Irish Disturbances," by Sir Cornewall 
Lewis (Lord Palmerston's Chancellor of the Excheq- 
uer), very useful to you, and also Senior's "Conversa- 
tions on Ireland," in two volumes. He was a very 
eminent political economist, who travelled much in 
Ireland after the famine to examine its circumstances, 
and who had long conversations (which he relates) 
with many of the leading men in the country. I was 



perplexed his friends. He was be in the original, 'marked 
described as a person of 'mor- veracity.' 
bid vivacity,' which proved to 
15 



210 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

re-reading this book very lately at Vosbergen * — 
where, by the way, there is an excellently selected 
collection of books relating to Ireland — and I was 
much struck with its fidelity and value. . . . We are 
threatened this winter with a general strike for re- 
duced rents, and there is an organised system of 
intimidation throughout the country which is vastly 
more powerful and terrible than English law. Trial 
by jury in agrarian cases hardly ever succeeds, unless 
exceptional laws are in force. One of Gladstone's 
measures, reducing greatly the qualifications for jury- 
men, has almost destroyed it, and the discourage- 
ment of all the loyal classes, who see the most vital 
Irish interests habitually treated as mere counters 
in the English party game, is beyond expression.' 

He went to Trianon and to Chartres, and returned 
to London, whence he wrote: United Service Club: 
October 10. — ' My first sensation on arriving is gener- 
ally how wonderful it is that anyone should live here 
who can live in any brighter climate.' 

He received at this time a request to lecture at Man- 
chester, and to write a sketch of modern history for a 
new compilation — all of which he refused, according 
to his habit, as he wished to concentrate all his energies 
on his book. ' I have been working very steadily a good 
many hours of the twenty -four/ he wrote, 2 ' and have 
got through a good deal.' By the end of October he 
finished a long chapter in which he had embodied the 
results of his Paris work, the twenty-second chapter of 
the History. He frequently dined with Mr. Herbert 
Spencer at the United Service Club — where the 
members of the Athenaeum received hospitality while 
their club was undergoing the yearly cleaning process — 



1 His brother-in-law Baron 2 To his wife, 

van Dedem's country house. 



M. REVILLE AND MR. GLADSTONE 211 

and he was amused with Mr. Spencer's ingenious com- 
parisons between the two clubs. 'He is much struck 
with the force of traditional matter — the soldiers 
still call their club the United Service Club, " a name 
intrinsically absurd, as one thing cannot be united." 
. . .' ' Gladstone, as you have probably seen, is thinking 
of "the dawn of creation and of worship" instead of 
the theories of Mr. Chamberlain, and is just going to 
publish an article on that subject.' 

The article was an answer to M. Reville, who had 
come before the British public as Hibbert Lecturer 
in 1884. 1 In his 'Prolegomena of the History of 
Religions ' — which had been translated into English 
the same year — he had refuted some of Mr. Gladstone's 
views. M. Reville had begun his career as pastor of 
the French Protestant church, and had been the first 
to occupy the chair of the History of Religions at the 
College de France. He was in fact a pioneer in that 
branch of learning to the study of which he devoted 
his life, and he combined with great earnestness all 
the French finesse d' esprit which gave a peculiar charm 
to his lectures. Lecky had seen much of him and his 
wife in London and followed the controversy with 
interest. When M. Reville sent him his reply to Mr. 
Gladstone and consulted him about getting it trans- 
lated, Lecky thought the quickest way was to do it 
himself; and it was also the best. ' Je suis tout confus, 
mais aussi bien reconnaissant,' wrote M. Reville. 'Je 
n'aurais pas ose compter sur un tel honneur et un tel 
avantage.' 



1 ' On the Religions of Mexico and Peru.' 



CHAPTER VIII 

1886-1888. 

Anticipations of Home Rule Bill — Letters to the Times — Split 
in the Liberal Party — Speech in Kensington Town Hall — 
On a Nationalist Parliament — -Sir W. Harcourt and Grat- 
tan's Parliament — Demand for the 'Leaders' — Defeat 
of Home Rule Bill — Completion of volumes v. and vi. 
of the ' History ' — Travels — Lake of Geneva — Publica- 
tion of the new volumes — Letters and Reviews — Holiday 
in Italy — Irish Vice-Royalty — Jubilee — Tour in the 
Harz — Paris Archives — Canon Miles — Liberal Union- 
ist meeting at Nottingham — Pelham Papers. 

The year 1886 was memorable for Mr. Gladstone's 
introduction of the first Home Rule Bill and the con- 
sequent split in the Liberal party. In private life Mr. 
Gladstone had for a long time past expressed leanings 
towards Home Rule, and though his public condemna- 
tion of the Parnellite leaders did not lead one to expect 
that he would adopt it as a practical policy, his sur- 
render to the Land League caused less surprise than 
the sudden defection of two other .statesmen. 

Early in the year, before the situation had shaped 
itself, Lecky wrote to Mr. Booth: 

Athenceum Club: January 3, 1886. — ' I got your 

letter yesterday on my return from , where we 

had been since Monday. I talked a good deal with 

• on the Home Rule question, and perhaps the 

best way in which I can answer your question is by 
telling you what he said — he is himself very strongly 

212 



THE HOME RULE QUESTION 213 

against it. He says all his colleagues, he believes, 
except Gladstone are, and he does not the least be- 
lieve it will be carried, but he hears that G. is much 
in earnest about it, and he thinks it very likely, if 
persisted in, to break the party to pieces. He thinks 
G. never meant the matter to be disclosed at this 
time, and doubts whether he consulted with anyone. 
If a Home Rule measure were carried through the 
Commons (which he thinks very unlikely) it would 
certainly be thrown out in the Lords, and there would 
be a dissolution on that question. The idea of a con- 
fiscation of Irish land he thinks quite out of the ques- 
tion, and he even said that he thought an enterprising 
speculator would make a good thing by investing now 
in Irish land, as it can hardly go lower than at present. 
He quite agreed with me about the peculiar obligation 
of the Government to the owners of Irish property. 
There is (1) the general obligation of a Government 
to all property that has grown up under its protection; 
(2) the fact that the unpopularity of Irish landlords 
is mainly due to their attachment to England; (3) the 
fact that fifty-two millions have been invested at 
Government invitation under the Encumbered Es- 
tates Act in the purchase of land with a parliamentary 
title; and (4) that the Land Act has recently judicially 
settled the conditions of Irish land. There are alarm- 
ing rumours of Lord Spencer being shaken about 
Home Rule, and it appears that Lord Carnarvon has 
been seeing much of Gavan Duffy (who wrote a pam- 
phlet to prove that Tories could particularly well 
grant Home Rule) and of — Archbishop Walsh. 
Liberal politicians (truly or falsely) think it very 
likely that the Government will go in strongly for a 
denominational university in hopes of conciliating 
the priests. It looks altogether much more as if 
Lord Wolseley would some day have to settle the 
question. I am afraid, however, it will come not to 
open fighting, but to a multitude of murders, &c. I 



214 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

hear that Lord Salisbury is quite alive to the danger 
of an Irish Parliament, and I was much amused by 
an extract which Froude read me from a letter of 
Jacob Bright, who says: " Brother John has been here, 
but has thrown no light on the Irish question — all 
his ideas seem overset, and the only suggestions he 
could make were that the franchise just given in Ire- 
land should be withdrawn and the Irish members 
excluded for ten years from the English Parliament !" ; 

To Mr. O'Neill Daunt he wrote: 

January 16, 1886. — ' I must thank you very much 
for again sending me an article from the Westminster. 
I had already read it with great interest. You know 
that I have a great deal of sympathy with you about 
the old Irish Parliament, but you know also that we 
do not agree about the feasibility of Home Rule. You 
have fought the battle of Repeal very long and very 
steadily, but do not forget what was the fate of the 
Girondins. I hope we may both keep our heads and 
something at least of our Irish properties!' 

Lecky felt strongly that the position was extremely 
serious, and that it was important the facts should 
be clearly put before the country. In a letter to 
the Times of January 13 he reviewed the situation. 
The chief objection to Home Rule, he said, was 
that the party who demanded it were 'animated by 
two leading ideas — a desire to plunder the whole landed 
property of the country, and an inveterate hatred of 
the English connexion in every form.' Let any Eng- 
lish statesman who has still illusions on the subject 
'read for only three months United Ireland, the most 
accredited organ of the party/ and if after that he 
'proposes to hand over the property and the virtual 
government of Ireland to the men whose ideas it 
represents/ he 'must be either a traitor or a fool.' 



LETTERS TO THE 'TIMES' 215 

Lecky called attention to the fact that 'the new 
franchise — unqualified by any provision for the pro- 
tection of minorities — has so swamped the scattered 
loyalists that a part which in mere numbers forms a 
full third of the population commands less than a 
sixth part of its representation/ and he expressed the 
conviction that 'as long as English statesmen assume 
as their first principle that a country where two-thirds 
of the population are disloyal must be or can be gov- 
erned by the same institutions and on the same plan 
of democracy as a country which is essentially loyal, 
so long, it may be safely predicted, will Irish anarchy 
continue.' 

He showed that two tasks lay clearly before the 
statesman. One was to restore 'that first and most 
fundamental condition of liberty, a state of society in 
which men may pursue their lawful business and fulfil 
their lawful contracts without danger or molestation;' 
the other was ' to create a new social type in the place 
of that which has been destroyed, by buying out the 
landlords at a reasonable rate.' 

The letter made a considerable impression, and 
Lecky received a large number of expressions of assent. 
Chief Justice Morris wrote: 'It puts the position ad- 
mirably. Stephen's 1 letters, though excellent, are too 
academic — the land is at the bottom of the move- 
ment and is the backbone of it.' 

' I was so very grateful to you for your note,' Lecky 
answered, January 17, 1886, 'which I value the more 
as I have always maintained that your judgment of 
Irish things is the best I know. I have been a good 
deal struck with the approval rather influential people 



1 Sir James Stephen had been writing letters to the Times on 
the same subject. 



216 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

have been good enough to give to my letter, and sus- 
pect that there is nothing Gladstone's leading col- 
leagues dread more than his accession to office.' 

A distinguished American friend in London wrote 
that, though he could not with propriety express any 
opinion upon questions of English politics, he might 
at least be allowed to express the great satisfaction 
with which he had read Lecky's lucid and incisive 
letter. ' Your presentation of the case is unanswerable, 
and does not at all need the additional force it derives 
from your acknowledged mastery of the subject as 
displayed in your "History of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury." ' 

Lord Tennyson sent a message that he was 'most 
grateful' for the letter; and Lady Tennyson added, 
'so are we all, and so ought every man, woman, and 
child in the Empire to be.' 

A full summary of the letter appeared in the New 
York Tribune, with the comment that it was given 
'not only because Mr. Lecky was a dignified figure in 
literature, but because he seemed to speak for the 
great body of the best English people.' 

The letter was reprinted by the Times for the Loyal 
and Patriotic Union, in a small book containing also 
the letters of Sir James Stephen on the Irish question. 

On the eve of the meeting of Parliament Lecky 
wrote a forcible appeal to the Times, signed 'An Old 
Whig.' 

' 1793-1886. — Have the majority of the Liberal 
leaders forgotten one painful but most instructive 
episode in the history of their party? It is the be- 
ginning of the great French war of 1793 when the 
Whig leaders committed the fatal error of placing 
themselves on the side of the enemies of England 
and by giving their party an unnational and unpa- 



THE LAND QUESTION 217 

triotic character, completely deprived it for nearly 
forty years of the confidence of their countrymen. 
Can it be possible that on the morrow of a general 
election, during which the Home Rule question was 
carefully kept out of the sight of the electors, and 
availing themselves of a majority which was obtained 
in consequence of this reticence, they are about to 
surrender the virtual government of Ireland to men 
whom they have described themselves as "the rebel 
party," "steeped to the lips in treason," and engaged 
"in a policy of plunder" — to men who, as they are 
perfectly aware, are subsidised agitators paid from 
America by the avowed and inveterate enemies of 
the British Empire ? And if this is not their intention, 
what possible significance can be attached to the 
reported appointment to the Chief Secretaryship of 
Ireland of a politician who has uniformly and con- 
sistently advocated this policy of surrender? That 
Mr. Gladstone should be engaged on such a design 
is perhaps not absolutely incredible. . . . No reason- 
able person who considers the present condition of 
Ireland can doubt that the Irish policy to which he 
has attached so much of his reputation as a states- 
man has proved the most stupendous, the most dis- 
astrous of failures. The fact that, after so many 
years mainly devoted to Irish questions, not a solitary 
Irish member was returned at the last election to 
support him, emphatically proved it. Many good 
judges anticipated that he would never acquiesce in 
such a humiliation and rebuff, and are not surprised 
that an overture — not the less significant or success- 
ful because of its ambiguity — should have come from 
Hawarden. But if , if , if make them- 
selves accomplices of such a design as I have de- 
scribed, what faith can any longer be placed in English 
statesmen ? It is surely time for these eminent men 
by a few plain words to clear the situation, to tell 
their fellow-countrymen whether or not they have 



218 WILLIAM EDWAKD HARTPOLE LECKY 

abandoned the opinions they have so often and so 
emphatically expressed — whether they are about to 
surrender to the National League, and, by acquiesc- 
ing in the dissolution of the Union, to prepare the 
way for the inevitable dismemberment of the Empire. 
This much at least is certain — that the next few days 
are likely, more than any period within the recollec- 
tion of our generation, to determine irrevocably the 
character and the reputation of English public men.' 

It was anticipated that the land question would be 
settled first by a large measure of compulsory purchase, 
and if it had been really on fair terms landlords at that 
time would not have objected. It is true that agri- 
cultural prices were very low, but the value of Irish 
land had not yet been depreciated by the wholesale 
reductions of the Land Courts. Many good judges 
thought that such a measure might make the farmers, 
if not actively loyal, at least indifferent to Home Rule. 

'I doubt very much/ wrote Lecky to Mr. Booth, 
'whether Gladstone's own colleagues know what 
course he means to follow. Sir Erskine May, who is 
one of the best-informed politicians, says there will 
be no Home Rule, that if Gladstone wished it the party 
would not follow.' 

Feeling ran high at that time, not only in the politi- 
cal atmosphere, but even, as rarely happens, in society. 
Old friendships passed through a severe ordeal. 

'No one who does not know the full strength of 
party allegiance in England,' Lecky wrote many years 
after, 'can realise the force of the shock which de- 
tached from the Liberal party such a man as the present 
Duke of Devonshire, who had been the most devoted 
and most loyal adherent to Mr. Gladstone; such men 
as the Duke of Argyll and Lord Selborne, who had 
during their whole lives been his closest friends; such 



SPEECH IN KENSINGTON TOWN HALL 219 

men as Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain, the univer- 
sally recognised leaders of advanced Radicalism. 7 

Those Liberals who remained staunch to the Union, 
and who were henceforth called Liberal Unionists, 
felt their party had been betrayed. Lecky's active 
support was now constantly asked for and given to 
the cause. In anticipation of the Home Rule Bill, 
which was introduced on April 8, a meeting was organ- 
ised by the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union at the 
Kensington Town Hall on St. Patrick's Day. Lecky 
was persuaded to take part in it, and spoke with all 
that intimate knowledge of Ireland's past and present 
which gave weight to his arguments, and with 
the eloquence that in old Historical Society days 
electrified his hearers. The speech was warmly ap- 
plauded. 

(To Mr. Booth.) Athenceum Club: March 1886. — 
'Edward O'Brien 1 inveigled me into a speech which 
was especially a Kensington affair. It went off, I 
think, very well, but " le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle," 
for I am now so nervous beforehand that it takes a 
great deal out of me, though (preparing very care- 
fully) when I get up, it goes on about as smoothly as 
it used to. It was a little specially alarming, as the 
police got notice that 200 Parnellites were to be sent 
clown to break up the meeting. However, precau- 
tions were taken, and it ended in thirty or forty dis- 
sentients. I was glad to find that I could speak under 
such circumstances and that my good countrymen 
(who are exceedingly fond of a little fiery rhetoric) 
were soon very quiet. I don't mean to do such a 
thing again for a long time.' 



1 Son of Smith O'Brien, who was connected with the Young 
Ireland movement. 



220 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The speech was amplified into an article ' A Nation- 
alist Parliament/ which he wrote for the Nineteenth 
Century of April, showing all the dangers of such an 
assembly and recalling the fact that the greatest states- 
men of every party had been opposed to O'Connell's 
Repeal movement, a movement 'much less dangerous 
than the present one.' The article was much quoted 
in the papers, and Lecky was surprised and pleased by 
the very large number of testimonies of adhesion he 
received from all sides. 

'I have just read your powerful article/ wrote 
Chief Justice Morris. 'It, to my mind, contains in 
the best form all that can be said on the principle of, 
or rather the want of principle of, the contemplated 
measure. ... I think the resistance to the scheme is 
swelling hourly, and your trenchant treatment will 
have its weight in the discomfiture of this most profli- 
gate attempt.' 

Although Lecky was not in favour of making what 
he called 'amateur excursions' into politics, he found 
it very difficult to keep out of them, for he was now 
constantly pressed to write articles or make speeches 
or go on deputations or join societies. His 'Leaders 
of Public Opinion in Ireland/ which had not attracted 
much attention hitherto, was now frequently quoted 
by Ministers in support of Home Rule; 'public men/ 
as he expressed it, ' had been a good deal reading his 
account of the Protestant Landlord Parliament, in 
hopes of getting an idea of what a Catholic-Fenian 
Parliament would be like. ' He was taxed with incon- 
sistency for opposing Home Rule, but it was not 
difficult to show that his position was perfectly logical, 
and it seems strange that men with ordinary common 
sense should have misunderstood it. 

In a letter of May 3, 1886, to the Times, he refuted 



CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR W. HARCOURT 221 

Mr. Morley, 1 and in a subsequent correspondence with 
Sir William Harcourt he disposed in an incontrover- 
tible manner of all the arguments used against him. 

'The true question at issue between Sir W. Har- 
court and myself/ he wrote in the Times of June 7, 
1886, 'is a very simple one. It is whether there is 
any real resemblance between the Irish Parliament 
of the last century and that which it is now proposed 
to establish. As a matter of fact the Parliament of 
1782 was a Parliament of the Protestant gentlemen of 
the country. It consisted of a House of Lords as well 
as a House of Commons. It was composed of men 
who were indisputably attached to the connexion, 
and it represented property more eminently and spe- 
cially than any Legislature which is now existing in 
the world. This Parliament with distinguished liber- 
ality gave Catholics the vote in 1793, but it gave it 
to them at a time when, as I have endeavoured to show, 
there was scarcely any serious disloyalty among them, 
and when there was no class warfare dividing the 
landlord from the tenant. After 1793, as well as be- 
fore, the Irish Parliament was a body emphatically 
and exclusively loyal. 

' Grattan desired two changes in its constitution. 
One of them was a diminution of the corrupt influence 
exercised by the Crown in the shape of excessive 
patronage and rotten boroughs. The other was the 
admission into the two Houses of that small body of 
Catholic gentry who were then, as they are now, 
among the most loyal and most useful elements of 
Irish life. The moral effect of this latter measure 
would, he believed, be very great, though the change 
in the composition of the Parliament would be very 
small. Both Grattan and Burke declared their firm 
belief that it would leave the Protestant ascendancy, 



1 Now Lord Morley of Blackburn. 



222 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

which was essentially the ascendancy of property, 
entirely unshaken. The conditions of Irish society in 
the eighteenth century were totally different from what 
they now are, but in those conditions it was the opin- 
ion of Grattan that such a Parliament as I have de- 
scribed could safely govern Ireland, and that it would 
be an efficient agent in blending the opposing creeds 
into a single nation and in combating that Jacobinical, 
levelling and revolutionary spirit which grew up in 
the last years of the century, and which he regarded 
as the greatest danger and calamity that could afflict 
his country. There is, however, nothing in Grattan's 
speeches — there is nothing, I may add, in anything 
I have myself written — which implies that the gov- 
ernment of Ireland could at any time have been 
safely entrusted to a separate Parliament which was 
not thoroughly loyal and closely attached to the prop- 
erty of the country. 

'The experiment which Grattan desired was not 
tried. The Government of Pitt resisted Parliamentary 
reform, increased corrupt influence, and by recalling 
Lord Fitzwilliam, prevented the admission of Catholics 
into the Irish Parliament. The fatal contagion of the 
French Revolution spread to Ireland, and the Rebel- 
lion of 1798 aroused passions which made self-govern- 
ment immeasurably more difficult. The Union was 
then carried corruptly and (as I believe) prematurely. 
It was unaccompanied by the indispensable measure 
of Catholic emancipation, and the government of Ire- 
land thus passed out of the hands of the Irish gentry. 

'Whether Grattan's theory of government could 
ever have succeeded is an historical question of much 
dispute. The great preponderance of opinion, both 
among English statesmen and historians, is against 
it, and supports the contention of Pitt that a separate 
Irish Legislature, even though it was thoroughly 
loyal and closely connected with property, was so 
dangerous to the integrity of the Empire that it was 



grattan's parliament 223 

necessary at all costs to abolish it. It is surely, how- 
ever, the very extravagance of controversy to pretend 
that a writer who adopts the opposite view, who blames 
the policy of Pitt and contends (with some qualifica- 
tion) that under the peculiar conditions of the eigh- 
teenth century the policy of Grattan ought to have 
been tried, is thereby committed to the Irish policy 
of the present Government. The Parliament which it 
is now proposed to establish would not be indisputably 
loyal, but indisputably the reverse. ... It would not 
be a Parliament representing or protecting landed 
property. Its leaders would be the men who signed 
the "No rent" manifesto and invented the doctrine 
of " prairie value"; and Ministers are so thoroughly 
aware of the fact, , that they propose an enormous 
scheme of land purchase in the well-founded belief 
that if they did not do so the Government they desire 
to construct would probably begin its operations by 
a general raid on the property of the country. It 
would not be a Parliament representing industrial 
interests. There is not, I believe, a single considerable 
representative name in Irish industry among its sup- 
porters, and the rapid fall of every great Irish invest- 
ment and the ruinous drain of capital from the country 
since the scheme has been started show beyond all 
dispute how it is regarded by men of business. It 
would not be a Parliament of conciliation. Every 
week that passes makes it more evident that the 
loyal and energetic Protestant population, who have 
created the prosperity of Ulster, will never submit 
to be handed over to the tender mercies of the priests 
and Fenians and agitators to whom Mr. Gladstone 
and his colleagues wish to entrust the government 
of Ireland. It is a scheme which at the same time so 
bristles with occasions for quarrel with England that 
it would be hardly possible to find a man off the Treas- 
ury Bench who pretends that it possesses any element 
of finality. No important English measure of the 



224 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

present generation has encountered such a consensus 
of independent condemnation, is so utterly opposed 
to the uniform traditions of English statesmanship, 
or threatens such grave dangers to the Empire. It 
is, I believe, perfectly notorious that if it had not been 
proposed by Mr. Gladstone there are not fifty Eng- 
lish members of Parliament who would vote for it.' 

A telling quotation from a speech of Grattan in 
1794 wound up the correspondence — a speech 

'in which Grattan commented upon a scheme of 
democratic representation, which was in his days advo- 
cated by the United Irishmen. Its object, he said, 
was "to destroy the influence of landed property." 
Its effect would be to place the government of Ireland 
in the hands of a Parliament unconnected with its 
property. In language much more emphatic than I 
should venture to use, Grattan proceeded to describe 
what appeared to him the inevitable result. "From 
a revolution of power," he said, "it would speedily 
lead to a revolution of property and become a plan 
of plunder as well as a scene of confusion. ... Of such 
a representation as this plan would provide, the first 
ordinance would be robbery, accompanied with the 
circumstance incidental to robbery — murder." "As 
long as there is spirit or common sense in the King- 
dom," he continued, "we will all and for ever resist 
it; but though you may defy the perpetrators of the 
design, you must acknowledge the mischief of the 
attempt."' 

'I have never known Irish history before at such a 
premium — indeed, at any premium,' Lecky wrote to 
Mr. Booth; and certainly the fate of his 'Leaders' 
was a curious illustration. When the book first came 
out in 1861 hardly anyone read it; when a revised 
edition was published in 1871 ('before Parnellism had 
given the Home Rule movement its predatory and 



DEMAND FOR 'THE LEADERS' 225 

agrarian character') it was much less successful than 
anything else he had written. Now there was such a 
demand for it that the edition was nearly exhausted. 
Even the chapter which he had suppressed in his re- 
vised edition of 1871 was disinterred and used in the 
Nationalist press as a kind of Home Rule manifesto. 
'As far as I have seen,' he wrote, 'nine-tenths is still 
perfectly true, and the rest, though rather youthfully 
eloquent and exaggerated, may, I think, be fairly 
justified by the very different condition of Ireland in 
1861.' 

Messrs. Longman suggested that a new and cheap 
edition at that moment would have a large circulation, 
but Lecky wrote: 

May 2, 1886. — ' Dear Mr. Longman, — I am entirely 
against the idea of a cheap edition of my "Leaders." 
The book is, I believe, a true book, and I am prepared 
to defend it, but it was published before the National 
League gave Irish National politics its present char- 
acter of a war of classes and a war against property. 
I do not wish, therefore, to put the book forward as 
altogether applicable to present conditions, and I have 
not time to revise or add to it.' 

He was resolved that it should not be reprinted with- 
out an introduction putting his views on the situation 
'beyond all dispute.' 

The Home Rule Bill was thrown out on June 8, and 
the number of Liberals who voted against it was a hope- 
ful sign. A dissolution followed, and the country con- 
firmed the vote in Parliament by a large Unionist 
majority. 

(To Mr. Booth.) June 10, 1886. — 'As far as I 
can judge, Unionists (of the two sections) are san- 
guine of winning at this election, but all political pre- 
16 



226 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

diction is now so uncertain that it is better not to 
prophesy. Heaven only knows how, in the long run, 
Ireland is to be governed. There has been no such seces- 
sion since that from the Whigs in 1793 and 1794 about 
the Revolution, and that secession produced a Tory 
ascendancy of thirty-five years. I hope you approved 
of my controversy with Harcourt. I could not help 
it, as he made a speech taken in a great measure out 
of my book. Did you notice in this morning's Times 
that I found an ally in his own brother? ' 

Mr. Booth having expressed a wish that Lecky 
should be in Parliament, he replied: 

June 16, 1886. — ' As for Parliament, which you 
speak of, even if any chance were to open, I am too 
old to begin a new career, and feel more and more 
that I have not the nerves or the assurance or the 
robust fibre or the good spirits needed for public life. 
' You will be amused at hearing, after the way I wrote 
about Gladstone, that I met that personage last night 
at dinner. He was, however, very civil, and except 
a few historical questions about the Irish Parliament 
and Macaulay's knowledge of Irish history, he said 
nothing to me about Ireland, and was chiefly holding 
forth about the condition of the Church in Norway. 
. . . Gladstone strikes me as old, and his voice is very 
husky. His talking is always interesting from the num- 
ber of facts and well-turned sentences, but it is exactly 
like a speech, more so than that of anyone else I have 
ever seen, and he very rarely says anything one re- 
members.' 

Meanwhile Lecky had been working hard at his two 
new volumes, and began correcting the proofs early in 
June. At the end of July he took a holiday and went 
first with his wife to Roy at, and afterwards to Glion 
on the Rigi Vaudois. The Lake of Geneva, with its 
lovely scenery and all its associations — especially the 



VOLUMES V. AND VI. OP THE ' HISTORY' 227 

' Coin du Lac ' — had a great fascination for him. 
During the beautiful September evenings they sat 
on the terrace at Glion — the lake stretching before 
them and the Castle of Chillon at their feet — loth to 
tear themselves away till the lights had gone out one 
by one at St. Gingolph on the opposite shore. 

'One world grows dark and many worlds appear.' 1 

The winter was taken up with proof-sheets, and 
Lecky found that the volumes were larger than he 
expected or wished. At that time he thought that 
one more volume — purely Irish — would complete 
his task ; and then ' I shall probably bid a lasting fare- 
well to history. I have hardly been reading anything 
of late, except myself/ he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'and 
wish much to get to something more interesting. ' He 
found, however, the time to read Dr. Dowden's ' Life 
of Shelley,' which he thought very well done, but too 
long; 'and the deplorable silliness and bonelessness of 
Shelley's character are very exasperating,' he said, 'to 
anyone who admires his poetry as much as I do.' 

In April 1887 the two new volumes came out. They 
brought the ' History of England ' to a conclusion with 
the outbreak of the war in 1793; they treated of the 
causes and effects of the French Revolution in its 
relation to England, the social condition of England 
at the time, and finally the history of Ireland during 
the same period. The volumes were extremely well 
received. His comprehensive knowledge, his clear 
insight, his calm judgment, his Easterly treatment of 
the various subjects received full recognition from the 
reviewers; and his friends were warm in their apprecia- 
tion. 



1 'An Evening Type,' Commonplace Book, 1862. 



228 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'Though mourning/ I know, is in your house,' 
wrote Mr. Kinglake, ' I yet cannot refrain any longer 
from congratulating you on the achievement — it is 
nothing less — of your last two volumes. They seem 
to me admirable in every chapter that I yet have mas- 
tered, and I may say that my reading, though not 
yet complete, has extended to a main part of both 
the volumes. Although I may have little right to 
speak as a critic, I am strengthened by the rare con- 
sensus of opinion amongst those with whom I have 
talked on the subject, and there is a warmth and hearti- 
ness in the praises bestowed such as one rarely hears 
in these days. The volumes fulfil three essential con- 
ditions: they are well based on authority, they are 
immensely engaging, and they tend towards sound 
statesmanship.' 

To French readers the fifth volume, which treated of 
the French Revolution, appealed especially. The 
French paper Le Temps recognised in it the work of 
'one of the most eminent, if not the most eminent, of 
English living historians, whose calm and elevated 
judgments carried with them an incontestable author- 
ity.' The expectation that he would study the French 
Revolution in a more impartial and large-minded 
spirit than most of his countrymen was not disap- 
pointed. 

Mr. Andrew White wrote from Cornell University, 
October 1, 1887, that he would insist on every student 
who should come up to the examinations at the end 
of the term or the next, reading the admirable chapters 
upon the French Revolution. 'They seem to me 
masterly in every respect. During this long summer 
vacation upon the Massachusetts coast and in the 
Adirondacks I have done a great deal of reading, but 



Mrs. Lecky's father had died. 



REVIEWS OF THE VOLUMES 229 

nothing has interested me so much as your last two 
volumes. You have certainly rendered a great service 
to the whole English-speaking race.' 

'I have had a good many reviews,' Lecky wrote to 
Mr. Booth in May, 'and almost all very favourable; 
more so, I think, than on the occasion of my last 
volumes. The Freeman's Journal especially had a 
very amiable (considering my politics) and also very 
able review, which I should guess to be written by 
Gavan Duffy. The book was stereotyped at the be- 
ginning, and 2000 copies were printed. I heard a 
week ago that only 400 remained, and that the sale 
was going on very steadily. ... I think myself that 
these two volumes are the best of the series, probably 
the best I shall ever do, for I mean never to under- 
take again a work of great research. I look forward 
with much dread to my last volume, which cannot, 
I think, be a success. It is a confused, tangled story 
of horrors and of isolated insurrections, without any 
element of dignity or beauty.' 

After the publication of the volumes, Lecky took a 
holiday in Italy with his wife. They went to Rome, 
stopping at Turin, Spezzia, Pisa, Sienna, and Orvieto 
on the way. They saw the latest excavations in the 
Forum, the House of the Vestals with its remarkable 
statues. But their chief object was Naples. To see 
once more the place which of all others had had such 
a fascination for him in his youth; to live among the 
memories of old Roman days; to visit Pompeii and 
Herculaneum, and all that enchanting neighbourhood 
— Posilipo, Sorrento, Amalfi — was a great enjoy- 
ment to him, and the sight of Vesuvius by day and by 
night a never-failing interest. 

In the summer, when he was back in London, he 
had a passage-at-arms in the Nineteenth Century with 



230 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Mr. Gladstone, who, in an appreciative review of 
Lecky's last two volumes, had taken exception to an 
incidental statement of his: 'We have ourselves seen a 
Minister go to the country on the promise that if he 
was returned to office he would abolish the principal 
direct tax paid by the class which was then predominant 
in the constituencies.' Mr. Lecky, he said, ought to 
have known and to have stated that with the proposal 
to repeal the income tax came a proposal to reconstruct 
and enlarge the death duties. Lecky had no difficulty 
in proving that Mr. Gladstone's memory had played 
him false, and that there had been no mention of the 
death duties at the time, 1 a fact which Mr. Gladstone 
acknowledged in a subsequent article, strengthening, 
however, Lecky's argument by adding that such a 
disclosure would have been both wholly novel and in 
the highest degree mischievous to the public interest. 
That year the question of abolishing the Irish Vice- 
Royalty was raised and discussed among Unionist 
politicians. As there were many who wished to know 
Lecky's views, he wrote a Memorandum on the subject 
and had it privately printed. His reasons for thinking 
it desirable to maintain the institution were, that it 
was one of the few in Ireland to which no one seriously 
objected; that to abolish it would be extremely un- 
popular in Dublin, which would lose much of its trade 
and sink into the position of a provincial town; that 
it seemed to him vitally important that the men who 
directed the government of Ireland should be in close 



1 It has since been shown Lecky's contention. In De- 

that Mr. Gladstone had some mocracy and Liberty he has 

such financial scheme in his gone very fully into the whole 

mind before the dissolution; question (vol. i. cabinet edition, 

but that does not affect pp. 159 sqq.). 



THE JUBILEE OF 1887 231 

touch with Irish character, feelings and opinions, and 
that for this purpose a Lord Lieutenant living in Ire- 
land was most valuable. He was a centre of society 
and presided over all important movements for the 
benefit of the country where otherwise party politics 
and sectarianism would take the lead. The proposi- 
tion that the Vice-Royalty kept up the idea of a sepa- 
rate nationality seemed to him altogether untenable, as 
it would be impossible by any institutions, or any 
abolition of institutions, to make the two countries 
alike. 

Two years later — in 1889 1 — when Lord London- 
derry resigned, a deputation of Irish Unionist peers 
and commoners went to the Prime Minister to urge 
the abolition, chiefly on the ground that the Vice- 
Royalty encouraged the idea that the complete union 
of Great Britain and Ireland had not taken place. 
Lord Salisbury answered that Lord Zetland had 
already been appointed and the question remained 
in abeyance. 

The great event of the year 1887 was the Jubilee. 
Lecky was invited to the Abbey, and was much im- 
pressed with the beauty of the ceremony, the music, the 
costumes, the striking effect of the sun rays lighting up 
the scene, and the touching incident at the end when 
all the Queen's children went up to her to pay their 
homage. The Procession was no less striking in its 
way — the cortege of princes on horseback escorting 
the royal carriage, and among them the fine and pa- 
thetic figure, in a white uniform, of the Crown Prince 
of Germany, 1 already doomed by a mortal disease to 
an early death. 

In the course of the summer Lecky went for a little 

1 May 29. 2 Afterwards the Emperor Frederick. 



232 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

journey to the Harz Mountains before joining his wife 
at Vosbergen. On the way he stayed at Cassel, and 
was delighted with the picture gallery, where he had 
two Rembrandts copied, the 'Saskia' and 'Coppenol/ 
On his arrival in Holland he wrote to his stepmother: 

Vosbergen: August 18, 1887. — ' I got here all right 
on Tuesday, after a very pleasant little journey. I 
went from Cassel to Harzburg, a pretty place in the 
Harz, wooded scenery much like the Jura but not 
quite so high or grand, but very graceful — one valley 
exceedingly like the Glen of the Downs. 1 I meant 
to have gone on through the mountains, but the 
weather broke, and I thought it better to keep to the 
towns. I went to Brunswick, a charming old town 
a good deal of the Nuremberg type, with a very fine 
gallery of Dutch pictures (though not as fine as Cassel), 
a beautiful theatre, and some curious churches. 
Thence to Hanover, where Herrenhausen, the Palace 
of the Electress Sophia and the early Georges, had 
naturally a great interest to an eighteenth-century 
person like myself. There are beautiful and quaint 
old gardens laid out by Le Notre attached to Herren- 
hausen — the spot where the Electress Sophia died 
walking in the garden, about six weeks before the 
death of Queen Anne would have given her the Eng- 
lish throne, is marked by her statue; and there is a 
museum with many curious Anglo-Hanoverian por- 
traits. The regular Hanover picture gallery is very 
inferior to the others I saw. What interested me most 
was a portrait by Lawrence of Pitt shortly before 
his death, his hair (though he was only about forty) 
already quite white. I went from Hanover to Osna- 
briick, and thence here, where I found all well and the 
country looking very pretty. ... I was looking yes- 
terday on the heath for the small blue gentians to 
send you, but none seem to have appeared yet.' 

1 In the County Wicklow. 



UNIONIST MEETING AT NOTTINGHAM 233 

In the autumn he was again at Paris reading in the 
Archives. He was always struck with the great 
courtesy of the officials, but also with the want of 
order in the records. ' They seem to think it the most 
natural thing in the world that a volume is simply 
introuvable,' he wrote. He read besides in the great 
library of the Rue Richelieu, and made out various 
knotty questions. He had some correspondence at 
the time with Canon Miles, 'who seems to be a very 
interesting person. He was a friend of Hannah More, 
and was on a visit to Lafayette's family in 1816!' 
Canon Miles was the son of the Miles who arranged an 
interview between Pitt and Maret in 1792. 1 

Soon after his return to England he found himself 
drawn once more into the anti-Home Rule campaign. 
A great Liberal Unionist demonstration was organised 
at Nottingham, where Mr. Gladstone had lately made 
a Home Rule speech at a meeting of the National 
Liberal Federation. Lord Hartington was to be the 
chief speaker, and Lecky was asked to take part in 
it with Mr. Finlay, 2 Mr. Arnold-Forster, Mr. T. W. 
Russell — at that time a keen Unionist — and other 
members of the party. He stayed with the Duke 
and Duchess of St. Albans at Bestwood, where there 
was a large political party assembled for the occasion. 
Two days before the meeting the Duke and Duchess 
entertained in the evening all the Nottinghamshire 
Liberal Unionists. Lord Hartington had to get on 
a chair and make them a short speech. The meeting, 
where some 2500 persons were expected to attend, 
took place the following Monday, October 24. The 
Duke of St. Albans presided, and Lord Hartington 



1 History of England, cabinet 2 Now Sir Robert Finlay. 

edition, vol. vii. p. 121, note. 



234 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

in an important speech replied to Mr. Gladstone's 
arguments of the week before. 

Owing to the courtesy of Mr. Finlay, Lecky was 
asked to speak immediately after Lord Hartington.- 
He always was the despair of the reporters, who found 
it often impossible to do justice to him on account 
of his rapid delivery. He was conscious of it, and as 
he objected to 'being made to talk nonsense in bad 
grammar/ he generally wrote down what he intended 
to say, and gave it to any reporter on the spot who 
asked him. He wrote afterwards 1 that everything 
went off all right. 'A very crowded, hot, but amiable 
meeting and good speaking. I got through my little 
performance tolerably well, and you will see it in the 
Times, which mercifully has not, like the other papers, 
transformed me into a "Professor."' In spite of all 
disclaimers, some reporters persistently called him 
'Professor/ which he much disliked, as he not only 
had no claim to that dignity, but considered it was 
connected with a sphere of work for which he had no 
taste or aptitude. 'Reporters/ he once wrote to Mr. 
Booth, 'seem to have got it into their heads that 
anyone who writes history must be a professor.' While 
at Bestwood, he went with Mr. A. Grey 2 and Mr. Finlay 
to Newstead Abbey, Byron's old home, lunching and 
spending the afternoon. 'It is a most curious place/ 
he wrote to his wife, 'full of beautiful pictures and 
with a multitude of Byron's papers and other things.' 

During his absence from London he received a com- 
munication from the head of the MSS. Department in 
the British Museum that the authorities had just 
bought some papers, including the correspondence 
of T. Pelham (Chief Secretary for Ireland under Lord 



1 To his wife at Amsterdam. 2 Now Lord Grey. 



LITERARY PROJECTS 235 

Temple and Lord Camden) ; and as this related to the 
very period he was writing about, he thought it might 
be most valuable and important, and that he must go 
through it carefully. On his return he began by 
working for a few weeks very hard at these papers 
in the British Museum. 

' I try to get to the British Museum as soon as pos- 
sible after 10/ he wrote. 1 ' I find those long mornings 
out tire me a good deal, and I am not able to work 
in the evenings; there are always also a variety of letters, 
&c, to be looked after — e.g. yesterday I was out 
from a little after 9.30, got back very tired about 5, 
and found a letter from the editor of the Liberal 
Unionist asking, if possible by return of post, for a full 
and corrected version of my speech, as he wanted to 
print extracts in the next Liberal Unionist, and thought 
of printing the whole separately. Fortunately I had 
a copy of a Nottingham paper which gave it (with 
small misprints) from my MS., and I was able in an 
hour or so, by corrections and amplifications, to make 
it tolerably right.' 

He received urgent requests to make speeches, 'but by 
desperate efforts I contrive to keep pretty well in my 
corner.' In the midst of his work he was, however, 
always ready to give his time if he could help anyone — 
whether it was to read and judge a number of essays 
for a friend who wished to give a school prize, or to 
read over the proof-sheets of a book at the request of 
another friend. 

He was also putting his American correspondent, 
Mr. Lea, in the way of getting copies made of Inquisi- 
tion papers in Trinity College, Dublin, for the valuable 
work on the subject which Mr. Lea was writing, and 
this led to a good deal of correspondence. 

1 To his wife. 



236 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'I am sorry/ he wrote in one of his letters to Mr. 
Lea, January 25, 1888, 'you have lost your interest 
in modern history, and I do not think it at all likely 
that I shall go back to the early days of my former 
book. I have a disagreeable and somewhat difficult 
task before me in unravelling the Irish history of the 
last years of the century, and if I accomplish this, I 
think I shall have paid my tribute to History. Next 
March I shall have reached the mature age of fifty, and 
I should like to write some of my thoughts on other 
subjects before the end. I have for a great many years 
kept a commonplace book for stray and miscellaneous 
thoughts, and I find that it foreshadows, as it will, I 
hope, largely assist, my future work.' 



CHAPTER IX 



1888-1890. 



Unionist Textbook — Mr. Matthew Arnold — Speeches at the 
Literary Fund dinner and at the Academy — Portrait by 
Mr. Wells for Grillion's Club — D.C.L. degree, Oxford — 
Donegal — Wexford — Monasterboice — Democracy — Par- 
nell Commission — Anti-Home Rule meeting, Birmingham 
— Mr. Bryce's 'History' — Harz Mountains — Completion 
of the ' History of England in the Eighteenth Century ' — 
Bust by Boehm — His death — Formative influences — 
Miss Lawless' ' Essex in Ireland ' — Cardinal Manning — On 
Catholicism — Death of Newman — Summer holidays — 
Grande Chartreuse — Publication of the last two volumes 
of the ' History ' — Reviews and letters. 

During the winter new editions were required of all 
his books (except the ' Leaders/ which he did not wish 
to reprint) , and he had — besides his ordinary work — 
to do a certain amount of revision, as he was always 
anxious to make them as accurate as possible. He 
also recast and expanded his article on the Home Rule 
question in the Nineteenth Century for a Unionist 
textbook. The Liberals had been to the fore with a 
Home Rule handbook in which there were a number of 
quotations from his ' Leaders ' used in support of 
Home Rule. The Unionist publication, 'The Truth 
about Home Rule,' was a rejoinder. It was edited 
by Sir George Baden-Powell and contained articles 
by various well-known public men. 

237 



238 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'I am deep in the Irish history of the last years of 
the century,' he wrote to Mr. Lea, February 1888, ' a 
subject which I find has a most alarming actualite. 
When I began my " History of the Eighteenth Century " 
most of my critics complained especially of the length 
of my Irish History, and I suspect most of my readers 
skipped it. Now nothing I write is half so much 
talked of and discussed as the Irish part. . . . You 
have a singularly charming and able Minister 1 here 

— a great friend of mine — who impresses greatly 
everyone he comes in contact with. I was present 
with him only yesterday at an interesting ceremony 

— at which M. Arnold read a paper — of the unveil- 
ing in Westminster church of a very beautiful window, 
erected by Mr. Child — I think, of your city — to the 
memory of Milton.' 

Not long after the ceremony of which Lecky speaks 
in this letter, Mr. Matthew Arnold died. Having to 
answer for Literature at the Royal Literary Fund 
dinner early in May, Lecky paid a warm tribute to 
his memory and to that of Sir Henry Maine, who had 
also died within the previous months. Two days later 
he had to respond for Literature at the Royal Academy 
dinner, and he once more alluded to 'that true poet 
and great critic' who had discharged the year before 
the task which now devolved on himself. 2 Commenting 
on the tendencies of modern literature, he recognised 

1 Mr. Phelps had succeeded ever known. He was one of 

Mr. Lowell as U.S. Minister in the few people who could talk 

London, and was no less pop- with the simplest and most 

ular than his predecessor. unaffected egotism about him- 

2 'Matthew Arnold,' he self and his writings without 

wrote many years after to Mr. offending or boring anyone, 

Booth, 'was a great friend of and his power of drawing out 

mine and one of the most what was good from all about 

attractive personalities I have him was quite extraordinary.' 



D.C.L. DEGREE, OXFORD 239 

that there were those who still kept up the old tradi- 
tions; and he spoke with much admiration of Mr. 
Kinglake, 'that great master of picturesque English/ 
who had lately published the last volume of his ' Cri- 
mean War,' and of a new poem which had struck him, 
Mr. Robert Buchanan's ' City of Dream.' 

He gave at that time sittings to Mr. "Wells, R.A., 
for a crayon portrait intended to be engraved for 
Grillion's Club, in accordance with the rules of that 
society, of which Lecky had been elected a member 
the year before. The drawing was done with all Mr. 
Wells' artistic skill and was a very good likeness; 1 and 
the sittings led to very friendly relations with the artist. 

Meanwhile he was working hard at his Irish History; 
he found, as he wrote to Mr. Booth (June 30, 18S8), 
' the enormous mass of MS. material, which no one has 
yet used, very overwhelming. I think, even at the 
expense of being dull, and destroying very much 
the symmetry of my book, I must do this period 
thoroughly; and as the whole book will probably 
require quite 120 pages of index, I am beginning to 
see, to my alarm, that it is likely to amount to two 
volumes, not, however, volumes like the last, but 
from 350 to 400 pages each.' 

In the summer the honorary degree of D.C.L. was 
conferred upon him at Oxford. He and his wife 
stayed under the hospitable roof of Dr. and Mrs. 
Moore at St. Edmund's Hall, and were much interested 
in the proceedings of the Encaenia. Those who re- 
ceived the degree at the same time were M. Bonghi, 
member of the Italian Parliament, Lord Lansdowne, 
Lord Brassey, Sir James Hannen, Dr. Martineau, and 
Dr. Joseph Prestwich. 



1 It is now in the Library at Windsor Castle. 



240 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

' You saw, I dare say,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, July 
4, 1888, 'that the University of Oxford was good 
enough, a few weeks ago, to make me D.C.L. It is 
a curious sign of how things have changed there, that 
one of my colleagues was Dr. Martineau, the leading 
Unitarian, and another Sir J. Hannen, the President 
of the Divorce Court. The first told me that, as a 
young man, one of the great trials of his life was that 
he could not go to the University on account of the 
Articles; the second told me that when he was at 
Oxford before, he had been taken to church and heard 
a long sermon from Dr. Liddon on the wickedness 
of the Divorce Court. Even I might hardly have been 
selected during the Pusey reign.' 

Later in the summer he went to Ireland, beginning 
with a short tour to Donegal by himself. His letters 
from there always seemed to breathe a current of the 
Atlantic air, which he thought the most invigorating 
in the world. He knew 'nothing like it to throw off 
quickly the lassitude of a London season.' 'Being 
the whole day out in most admirable air,' he wrote to 
his wife from Carrick, ' is, I am sure, the best of medi- 
cines.' He was much struck with the apparent great 
prosperity in the part of Donegal he had come through 
(from Ballyshannon) — no beggars, the people ex- 
cellently dressed, the houses beautifully whitewashed, 
often with roses creeping over them and magnificent 
fuchsias before the door. 'There is a fine old ruined 
castle of the O 'Donnells at Donegal (where I stopped 
an hour) and an old abbey, where the Four Masters 
— the oldest well-known historians of Ireland — wrote. 
The latest of their successors paid his homage to the 
site.' He walked to a point about one and a half 
hours from Carrick, where there was the finest cliff 
view he had ever seen. 'A semicircle of cliffs over 
the Atlantic, the highest, I believe, over 2000 feet 



DONEGAL 241 

high, with cataracts swollen from the rain dashing 
down their sides, and numerous sea birds wheeling 
round and screaming and clustering in multitudes 
upon the most lovely of little mountain lakes. Unfor- 
tunately, on neither of my expeditions have I been 
able to see the summits of the cliffs, which were wrapped 
in clouds, but the effect, notwithstanding, was ex- 
tremely grand.' 

He went on to Portrush, where he had not been for 
some thirty years, and with which he was greatly 
pleased. It struck him as very like both Sche- 
veningen and Biarritz, having, like the former, 'a 
magnificent stretch of two miles of the smoothest 
sand/ and, like the latter, 'beautiful views of cliffs 
chiselled by the waves ' ; but he thought it had a great 
many more interesting things near it than either 
Scheveningen or Biarritz. 

He paid a visit to his old college at Armagh — his 
first boarding-school — which evoked many memories ; 
and he went to Rostrevor, where he had not been since 
his college days, and which struck him again as one of 
the most beautiful sea places in Ireland, 'woods going 
down the hills right into the sea.' He afterwards 
went with his wife (who had joined him) to stay at 
his old home, Bushy Park, in the County Wicklow, 
where their friend Miss Crampton was now living. 

' . . . I am at present paying a short country visit 
in the County Wicklow,' he wrote to Mr. Albert Can- 
ning, whom he had missed seeing at Rostrevor, ' and 
afterwards going for a few days to the County Wex- 
ford to look at the scene of the '98 rebellion, and hope 
then to be for a few weeks at Kingstown, from where 
I mean to go through some work in Dublin relating 
to my book. The last seven years of the century in 
Ireland, however, form a large subject, and a full year 
17 



242 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

must pass before I can have accomplished it. I am 
glad to hear of your Tablet review. The reviews in 
that paper always strike me as good, and it is one of 
the two religious papers (the Guardian being the other) 
which are conducted with real ability and command 
the respect of intelligent and non-theological laymen. 
'The subject of your proposed book 1 is a large and 
very interesting one, and I hope you will carry out 
your scheme. You will find in Buckle's " History of 
Civilisation" a good deal that is valuable relating to 
it.' 

Lecky went to Wexford as he wished to make out 
the sites of the Wexford rebellion before writing about 
it. The interest was a purely historic one, for Ennis- 
corthy, which he made his headquarters, does not 
offer great attractions. He identified Vinegar Hill 
— the scene of many horrible massacres — and the 
site of Scullabogue Barn, where a number of prisoners 
made by the rebels were burnt alive. He went to 
New Ross, Three Rocks — in fact, to all the places as- 
sociated with the terrible events of those days; and it 
will be seen from his account of the rebellion that he 
had made himself familiar with the ground. The 
subject was a peculiarly difficult one to write about 
on account of all the conflicting evidence, and Lecky, 
as usual, sifted it with the utmost care. 

During that summer he and his wife paid a pleasant 
visit to their old friend Mrs. Dunlop at Monasterboice 
House, Drogheda, not far from the scene of the battle 
of the Boyne, which is as picturesque as it is interest- 
ing. An obelisk marks the place where William crossed 
the river and where the Duke of Schomberg was killed. 



1 Literary Influence in British History, by the Hon. A. S. G. 
Canning. 



DEMOCRACY 243 

His hostess was the granddaughter of John Foster, the 
last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and this 
link with a period which so much occupied his thoughts 
was of great interest to him. The Plan of Campaign 
had been rife in those parts, especially on the neigh- 
bouring property of Mrs. Dunlop's nephew, Lord 
Massereene; and one evening during Mr. and Mrs. 
Lecky's stay he and his wife came to dinner under the 
protection of two constables, who remained in the 
house and followed them again on their way home at 
night. Such incidents — apart from their deplorable 
causes — gave a zest to Irish country life. 

It happened more than once when visiting country 
houses that Lecky came across some historical reminis- 
cence or other connected with the times he was writing 
about; thus, on one of his visits to an old friend, Lady 
Bunbury, who lived in a charming old rambling manor- 
house at Mildenhall, in Suffolk, he found that she had 
in her possession some contemporary letters about the 
tragic end of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, with whom the 
Bunbury family had been connected, and these were 
very useful to him. 1 

In October Lecky was again in London. ' I am still 
deep in Irish history,' he wrote to his American corre- 
spondent, Mr. Lea, October 21, ' and shall be so all next 
year, after which I hope to be able to realise a little 
more that Ireland is not at once the centre and the 
circumference of the universe! How narrowing a 
long book is!' 

Lecky, notwithstanding, kept more in touch with 
the politics, the literature and social life of the day 
than most men; and however much he might be en- 
grossed in his work, his keen interest in all that went 



1 History of Ireland, cabinet edition, vol. iv. pp. 311 sqq. 



244 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

on in the world never flagged. His outlook was always 
broad and his mind open to new ideas. 

'I was much interested in your election paper,' he 
wrote to Mr. Lea on November 14, 1888. 'I suppose 
you and France represent the two types of democ- 
racy to one or other of which the world is tending. 
France is certainly not encouraging, and (considering 
your admirable education, your immense advantages, 
and your very high industrial, social and intellectual 
civilisation) I am not sure that you are either. It 
seems to me at least that America would be very 
unfairly and unfavourably judged if she were judged 
by her newspapers, her politicians, or by such a mani- 
festo of principles as the Republican party lately put 
out — that, in fact, the political side of her civilisation 
is very inferior to the other sides. Here, too, we have 
had rapid and evident signs of degeneration, and our 
Constitution is so plainly worn out — the checks and 
balances being all gone — that some organic change 
must before very long be made if a great decadence 
is to be avoided and a great Empire held together.' 

The sittings of the Parnell Commission that winter 
engrossed public attention, and their dramatic devel- 
opment drew the bond still closer between Gladsto- 
nians and Parnellites ; but though the letters attributed 
to Parnell proved forgeries, the Report with the find- 
ings of the Commission — which was issued the follow- 
ing winter — severely condemned the methods of 
Parnellism. 1 Meanwhile Unionists did not relax their 



1 ' Report of the Special it comes out. It is amusing to 

Commission, 1888, 'see Democ- see both sides proclaiming 

racy and Liberty, vol. i. cab- their triumph; but only one 

inet edition, p. 236, vol. ii. side prints the Report, and it 

p. 11. 'I think the Report hardly needs a Solomon to 

will do great good,' wrote draw the inference.' 
Lecky (to Mr. Booth), 'when 



SPEECH AT BIRMINGHAM 245 

efforts to keep the country alive to the dangers of the 
situation. 

In the spring of 1889 there was a great anti-Home 
Rule meeting at Birmingham, which was exclusively- 
addressed by Irishmen. Lecky was asked to make a 
speech, and was the guest on the occasion of the late 
Mr. Bunce, the very able editor of the Birmingham 
Daily Post. 

He was very much struck with the various magnifi- 
cent municipal institutions in that city and the im- 
mense public spirit, intelligence, and generosity which 
they showed. He had never seen anything like it, 
and as Mr. Bunce was a leading person in it all, he 
felt that he saw it to much advantage, Mr. Chamber- 
lain gave a large political party, and the meeting took 
place the next evening in the Town Hall. Lecky, in 
his speech, went over all the objections to Home Rule, 
and showed clearly that there would be no finality in 
it, and that one of the first objects of an Irish Parlia- 
ment would be to abolish any paper restrictions that 
might be imposed. 

'For my own part,' he said, 'I cannot tell whether 
in the vicissitudes of politics some such Parliament 
may not be set up in Ireland, but of this at least I feel 
absolutely confident, that no such restricted Parlia- 
ment can last. It can have no element of permanence 
or finality. It will be a mere step to separation and 
to the breaking up of the Empire, or it will lead to a 
scene of confusion and ruin which will probably end 
in the reconquest of Ireland.' 

He dealt with the arguments of those who pretended 
'that Home Rule ought to be given as a kind of expia- 
tion for historical grievances.' 

' It is perfectly true,' he said in his peroration, ' that 



246 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

there are many pages in the history of Ireland that 
will not bear looking into, just as there are many pages 
that are disgraceful in the history of the English Revo- 
lution, or of the English Reformation, or of the estab- 
lishment of Christianity in most parts of Christendom, 
or of the formation of the unity of every great king- 
dom on the Continent. But are the misdeeds of gen- 
erations who have long since mouldered in the dust 
any real reason for bringing down upon our own gen- 
eration the unspeakable calamity of a divided and 
enfeebled nation, for throwing a great loyal popula- 
tion out of the protection of the Imperial Parliament, 
for planting in the very heart of the British Empire 
the seeds of triumphant and contagious anarchy, and 
perhaps even of civil war? I do not think I have any 
disposition to undervalue history, or to underrate the 
great lessons of guidance and charity it may teach, 
but I do most deliberately say that it would be better 
that the Book of History were never opened than that 
it should be treated in a manner so hopelessly, so child- 
ishly irrational. ... I trust that the English people, 
with their accustomed good sense, will brush away 
these claptrap arguments with the contempt that they 
deserve and will consider this momentous question 
seriously and on its real merits. There never was a 
question which more deserved such treatment; for 
there never was a question which went more directly 
to the very root of the well-being of the Empire. I 
believe that the more the English people consider, it, 
the more clearly will they perceive that it never can 
be either wise or honourable to turn law-breakers 
into law-makers, to subject a loyal population to a 
disloyal one, or to place a vital and integral portion 
of this great Empire in the hands of men whose attach- 
ment to that Empire they have the very gravest 
reason to suspect.' 

His speech was said to have been excellent — in fact, 
to have been the speech of the evening, which one 



mr. bryce's 'history' 247 

would hardly have gathered from his own modest 
account. 

He wrote 1 after the meeting: 

1 It was very full, and a very imposing sight — ■ and 
the immense size of the hall, which is larger than 
Exeter Hall, made it very alarming. However, I 
duly got through my little performance, talking, as 
usual, too fast (though I tried to be slow), and forget- 
ting one or two things I had meant to say, and, thanks 
to my typewriting (of which both copies were asked 
for), I hope I may not be made to talk nonsense. 
Lord Derby, as usual, was very kind, predicting that 
no one would again quote my "History" against me, 
and that I should be forced into Parliament — neither 
of which predictions (most happily not the last) is 
the least likely to come true.' 

' I never had to address such an audience as at Bir- 
mingham/ he wrote to Mr. Booth, ' for the hall is one 
of the largest in England; holds from 4000 to 5000 
people, and was very full. I am glad it is over, and 
hope now to think of nothing but my book, at which 
I am working very hard, as I want to begin printing 
a part of it within a month or so. ... I saw the Attorney- 
General on Saturday at the Academy dinner; he said 
Parnell was so completely broken down by his cross- 
examination that he was quite done for and could 
never recover. Whether the outside public will take 
this view remains to be seen.' 

Mr. Bryce's 'History of the American Common- 
wealth' was among the books which appeared about 
that time and greatly interested him. 

'I was glad,' he wrote to Mr. Lea, February 21, 



1 To his wife. The Birming- leaflet and used by the Lib- 
ham speech was, like the Not- eral Unionist Association, 
tingham one, printed as a 



248 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

1889, ' to see your name and help in Bryce's new book, 
which I hope you like as much on your side of the 
Atlantic as we do on ours. Here the second volume 
has especially made a great impression, for although 
we knew a good deal about your Federal Constitution, 
very few Englishmen knew in any detail about your 
State Governments, or about the practical working 
of the "machine." I am sure the book on our side of 
the water will do good. I think the best judges over 
here believe that sooner or later something must be 
done to restrict the omnipotence of such a Parliament 
as we possess, and it can only be done by building on 
your model.' 

(To the Same.) May 6, 1889. — ' . . . Bryce's book 
has given rise to a good deal of comment over here. 
You will have seen Lord Acton's article in the Histori- 
cal Review, which seems to me (like a good many 
of Lord Acton's writings) to throw much more light on 
the multifariousness of Lord Acton's reading than on 
the real merits and significance of the subject he is 
treating. An article which struck me far more is in 
the current number of the Edinburgh. You probably 
would not agree with it, but I am sure it would interest 
you, as it is by the writer who (in my opinion at least) 
is the best English writer on political subjects since 
the death of Maine — Professor Dicey. I am working 
very hard winding up my two volumes for the press. 
You, no doubt, know by experience what a trouble- 
some matter that is.' 

Judge Go wan sent him (March 1889) a review of Mr. 
Bryce's book, and in thanking him Lecky wrote: 

'It contains so excellent a summary of the chief 
defects of the American Constitution that I have cut 
it out to keep for further use. At the same time, I 
wish much that we had some provisions in our Consti- 
tution for restricting organic change resembling those 
in the United States. A Parliament which is at once 



THE HARZ MOUNTAINS 249 

omnipotent and democratic is not, I think, a Govern- 
ment that can long steer safely a great empire. The 
second volume of Bryce interested me most, and at 
this side of the water his elucidation of the nature and 
working of the local legislatures was very new as well 
as very valuable. I must thank you also for sending 
me your very comprehensive and interesting speech 
about the grand juries. It is curious to see those 
old-world institutions flourishing, or at least existing, 
in your new country. ... I am at last bringing to an 
end the History which has occupied so many years 
of my life. It will be a strange sensation to have ter- 
minated.' 

During the summer he began correcting the proof- 
sheets, which kept him in London till the middle of 
August. 'I do not agree with you,' he wrote in the 
summer (August 29, 1889) to Mr. Lea, ' in finding the 
transition from MS. to print a disagreeable and dis- 
heartening thing; on the contrary, I usually find it 
very pleasant; but the explanation probably is that 
you write one of the most perfect and I one of the 
most detestable of handwritings.' 1 

He did some revising in the country in Holland, and 
only took a short holiday in the autumn. The moun- 
tains of the Harz are among the most accessible to 
go to from Holland for bracing. He had only seen 
them hastily before, and he liked going back there 
now with his wife. The scenery is extremely fine and 
attractive, and there are many legends connected with 
it which greatly add to its charm. They spent a 



1 ' You are fortunate in succeed in attaining the ideal 

finding enjoyment in proof much more nearly than I do. 

reading,' answered Mr. Lea, This is the explanation and 

September 22, 1889, ' fortu- not the difference between our 

nate because it shows that you handwritings.' 



250 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

lovely autumn day in the valley of the Use, at the foot 
of the Brocken Mountains, where the Witches in ' Faust ' 
held their meeting on Walpurgis Night. They went 
on to Weimar, from where Lecky wrote to his step- 
mother, September 24, 1889: 

'We were delighted with Thale, which is at the 
bottom of the Bodethal, the most beautiful valley in 
the Harz, and, indeed, one of the most beautiful I have 
ever seen. It reminded me a good deal of the finest 
Pyrenean scenery, especially of the Cauterets Valley 
— very high and perfectly precipitous, jagged rocks; 
vast and exceedingly beautiful woods of fir, beech, 
oak, and birch, stretching for many miles; streams of 
the clearest water, sometimes as broad as the ' Adour, 
but often narrowed to three or four feet as they rush 
through clefts of rock, sometimes exceedingly grand 
and savage, and at other times of a very restful and 
tranquil beauty. We found the autumn tints of the 
woods in the utmost beauty, and in one of our drives 
we came across four wild deer. Except one day, the 
weather was exceedingly fine, though very cold — 
the hotels just on the eve of closing for the winter. I 
do not think we saw a single English person in the 
Harz, yet I know little scenery that is really finer, and 
the air (sweeping through the great fir forests) seemed 
to me as good as Switzerland, and it is all so very near. 
. . . We saw near Thale a very curious old castle of 
the Dukes of Brunswick — Blankenburg — where Maria 
Theresa was born and where the Comte d'Artois (Louis 
XVIII.) spent part of his exile. It is full of interesting 
old portraits of the many families with which the 
Brunswicks intermarried.' 

They spent some days at Weimar among the fasci- 
nating reminiscenses of Goethe and Schiller ; stayed at 
Eisenach and saw the Wartburg, with all its memories 
of Luther and the Meistersinger. The autumn col- 



COMPLETION OF THE ' HISTORY' 251 

ouring of the forests in Thuringia — the bright crimson 
of the maple trees — left an indelible impression. They 
stopped at Cassel to see the admirable picture gallery- 
arid Wilhelmshohe ; and they went home by Paris, 
where there was another exhibition, on a more extended 
scale even than the former one. 

On his return he was again deep in Irish history. 

' I cannot make any prediction/ he wrote to Mr. 
Booth in November, ' about my new Irish volumes, 
except that they are likely to be long and tiresome 
and are tolerably sure to get me into a scrape with 
both parties. The fact is that the Union was as 
corrupt and discreditable a transaction as could well 
be, and the more it is looked into the more I think it 
will appear so; all of which is not the smallest reason 
for "expiating" the destruction of a Parliament of 
landlords by establishing a Parliament of Land- 
Leaguers. The old Whigs, like Lord Grey and Lord 
Russell, while steadily resisting repeal, never for a 
moment questioned the corruption of the means by 
which the Union was carried; but the present Union- 
ists have taken it into their heads to defend their 
very excellent politics by very indifferent history. 
The work of what the Times calls my "impulsive 
boyhood" was a little over-coloured, but I certainly 
deny that it is substantially wrong.' 

During the winter Lecky finished the writing of the 
'History/ while he was simultaneously correcting the 
proof-sheets of the earlier part. In a notebook, chiefly 
of literary entries, there is the following: 'March 1, 
1890. — Wrote the last pages of my " History of Eng- 
land.'" He had hoped to bring it out in the spring, 
but as it would have been ready too late for the pub- 
lishing season, he was advised to put it off till the 
autumn. 



252 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

(To Mr. Booth.) February 20, 1890. — ' I had been 
working extremely hard to be able to get my book out 
at the beginning of May, but Longman tells me that 
for various sordid reasons it is much better to defer 
the publication till October; so I am now taking mat- 
ters more easily. The end of this book I find very 
difficult. It is impossible to conclude a history of 
the Union without going into its consequences, and 
therefore dealing with present politics, which is not in 
general desirable in what aspires to be a standard 
history. I cannot, however, help it, and must face 
the charge of writing a party pamphlet on account 
of two or three concluding pages. I want, when I 
get it off my hands, to try if I can do something with 
my "Leaders of Public Opinion," which has been long 
out of print and much in demand.' 

He was asked at this time to write an article 
for the American review, the Forum, on the influ- 
ences which had a part in the formation of his 
character. It was to be one of a series written by 
various authors. Though he disliked being autobio- 
graphical, the proposed subject was not uncongenial 
to him, as it left him a great latitude of choosing 
his own line. 

While the mornings were devoted to work, he gave 
some sittings in the afternoons to his friend Sir Edgar 
Boehm, the sculptor, who had asked to do his bust. 
It was interesting to see with what extreme care 
Boehm modelled his subject, and how he strove to 
bring out the mind and character. He succeeded 
admirably, and replicas of the bust are precious pos- 
sessions in more places than one. It was among the 
last works of Boehm, for he died early in the following 
winter, leaving a great blank among his friends, as 
well as in the world of art. Lecky wrote a notice of 
him in the Spectator, in which he showed his apprecia- 



DECLINES REQUEST TO LECTURE 253 

tion of Boehm's fine chivalrous nature as well as of 
his artistic genius. 

In May 1890 Lecky received an urgent and most 
kindly worded request from Dr. Butler, the Master of 
Trinity, whether, 'even with a sadly short notice/ he 
'could be persuaded to do a great service to the Uni- 
versity' by undertaking to deliver the Rede Lecture at 
Cambridge in June. Lecky usually declined all re- 
quests he received to lecture, both in England and 
America, and though he would have been glad to 
render a service to the University, he felt obliged to 
refuse this one also, as all his time was taken up. 1 
At the same time he had to decline a request from Pro- 
fessor Knight to write a University Extension manual, 
'for I have quite as much literary work on hand as I 
can manage,' he wrote, 'and I have very little of the 
happy power of turning easily from subject to subject. 
I find that in order to do anything really well I must 
concentrate myself severely on my own lines of work 
and refuse many tempting but distracting offers. 
Please forgive me/ 

The article in the Forum, which came out on June 
l 2 , was, of course, specially interesting to an old college 



1 As there is a somewhat asked to give the Rede Lec- 

ambiguous reference to this ture, but he had to decline for 

matter in Sir R. Jebb's Life, the same reason, 

(p. 275), it is as well to state 2 There was also a notice 

that Dr. Butler's letter to with a portrait of him in the 

Lecky was dated May 8, and July number of Men and 

that Lecky lost no time in Women, which gave portraits 

answering, for the Master was accompanied with outline biog- 

able to make the same pro- raphies. He was asked to give 

posal to Professor Jebb on the all the material, and thought 

following day, May 9. In it best to do so; for, though he 

1894 Lecky was once more wished that his private life 



254 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

friend who had seen 'the formative influences' at 
work. Mr. Booth thought it was one-sided and that 
it did not take all these influences into account; he 
felt sure, he wrote, that Lecky in his college days 
read Shelley (of whom he did not speak) more fre- 
quently than Whately's 'Errors of Romanism/ and 
declaimed Grattan and Curran oftener than the Ser- 
mons of Bishop Butler. Had he not been a little 
ungrateful not to mention the Historical Society? 
and might not his college study of Irish history, of 
which he also said nothing, have influenced him in 
taking up the eighteenth century as the magnum 
opus? 'Whatever the cause of the "formation," 
there can be no doubt as to the result — the only matter 
of regret is that the spirit of Grattan was less powerful 
and that an oratorical faculty of rare brilliancy should 
have remained so long unused.' 
Lecky answered: 

Athenceum Club: July 4, 1890. — ' I was much 
amused by your criticism of my article. No one else 
is as competent to criticise it as you are. I was asked 
only to write an article of 4000 words, and in that 
space one does not attempt an autobiography (a 
thing, moreover, I should hate to do). To write 
effectively it is necessary to take a single line, and I 
think that of theological development is the most 
important, and also the one most likely to interest 
a far-off public, who certainly could not care about 
debating societies or rhetoric. I think, within those 
lines, what I wrote was a true account, though, of 
course, as you truly say, it was not an adequate or 
complete one; and I was glad to have an opportunity 
of saying something about both Whately and Buckle. 



could be kept out of publicity, ' and if true versons are not 
he felt this was very difficult, given, false ones are invented.' 



CARDINAL MANNING 255 

I looked over my own "Religious Tendencies of the 
Age" before writing the article, and it a good deal 
freshened up my recollections. I cannot say I regret 
not being in politics — I have neither the business 
faculty nor the callousness required for such a career, 
and English politics are not now an inviting sphere. 
I have had to make two speeches within the last ten 
days — one at a Conservative club 1 which invites 
Liberal Unionists, and last night at the Geographical 
Society at the Stanley banquet. I have all but fin- 
ished my proof-sheets, with the exception of the index, 
which I do not make, and which has not yet come to 
me. I wish it had, for I want much to get away to 
fresher air.' 

Before leaving London that summer Lecky wrote a 
short notice of Miss Lawless' 'Essex in Ireland' for 
the Nineteenth Century. He was an enthusiastic 
admirer of the writings of Miss Lawless, who was, 
moreover, a great friend of his. In a letter on the 
subject which he wrote to her he mentioned the fol- 
lowing incident: 

'. . . I had a curious colloquy a few days ago at the 
Athenaeum with Cardinal Manning. He came up to 
me and asked whether I knew you and your books, 
and praised them greatly, dwelling especially upon the 
"History." He then asked me whether I had read 
his own speech claiming for the people of Ireland the 
ownership of their own soil and the right of managing 
their own affairs. That, he said, he considered "mod- 
erate Home Rule," and hoped I went a long way with 
him. I told him I thought his phrases required a 
good deal of definition, and that I did not at all follow 
his banner. "Well," he said, "you are a cautious 
man and an historian, but I can only say to you what 



1 The Cecil Club, June 25, 1890. 



256 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

I said to the Holy Father. I said, 'Holy Father, if 
I was an Irish bishop you would have to chastise me 
a hundred times/" "I can quite, imagine it, your 
Eminence," I said; and he laughed and went away. 
What fiery people archbishops nowadays are ! ' 

Though Lecky had been for so many years engrossed 
in history, he never lost his interest in his earlier 
subjects; and he still thoughtfully watched the religious 
tendencies of the age. His American correspondent, 
Mr. Lea, was making a study of the indulgences. 
Lecky had been struck, in Spain, with the fact that 
bull-fights were often given for charities; and he had 
heard that even indulgences were granted to persons 
who attended bull-fights given for particular religious 
purposes. This seemed to him incredible. He hoped 
Mr. Lea's investigations would throw some light on 
that subject. 

'I am much interested in hearing,' Lecky wrote, 
'that you have taken up the great subject of Indul- 
gences, though I fear it will make the completion of 
your "History of the Inquisition" very doubtful. . . . 
Nothing in religious questions has struck me more 
than the enormous difference between the official 
Catholicism of the Council of Trent and of the writings 
of Bossuet or Newman, and the pure and manifest 
polytheism and idolatry of the actual religion as it 
is practised in a great part of Europe, with the direct 
sanction and under the special benediction of the 
highest authorities of the Church. I believe an inade- 
quate appreciation of this difference has had a great 
deal to say to the fascination Catholicism has during 
this century exercised over many Englishmen. D61- 
linger, I believe, used to say that one of the great 
distinctions between Ultramontane and Liberal Cathol- 
icism was the extent to which what is called la petite 
devotion — relics, pilgrimages, miracle-working images 



DEATH OF NEWMAN 257 

— superseded in the former the great lines of Christian 
devotion, and he considered this largely due to the 
influence of the Jesuits. 

'The future of America and democratic Catholicism 
is a very interesting question. Here there is an evi- 
dent tendency on the part of some important leaders 
(Manning especially) to make popular support rather 
than Government favour the great leverage of the 
Church; and the definition of Infallibility, while sep- 
arating Catholicism still further from the educated, 
tends, I think, to strengthen its discipline and its hold 
over the masses. I do not see how a schism is now 
possible without subverting the whole Catholic system 
in the separated body, for the Papal authority is more 
than ever the very keystone of the arch, and it is impos- 
sible, without giving up the whole Catholic theory, to 
fly in the face of a Pope who has been pronounced 
infallible by a General Council and accepted as such 
by the whole episcopate. Besides, indifference, scep- 
ticism and the alienation of a great portion of the 
moderate and intelligent lay intellect which once tem- 
pered fanaticism and superstition all tend to throw 
the guidance of the machine into Ultramontane hands. 
I am taking my usual holiday on the Continent, but 
hope to be again in London about the end of October.' 

The death of Newman, which occurred on August 11, 
1890, made a great impression in England. Lecky 
always admired Newman's eloquent style and subtle 
philosophic reasoning, and he had been from early 
days familiar with his writings. 'Newman's death/ 
he wrote to Mr. Lea (February 1891), 'has a good deal 
revived over here the interest in his books and specula- 
tions. It is a curiously wide influence in England, 
for there is a strong sceptical element in them which 
appeals to many who are far from Catholicism. There 
is a remarkable article on the subject by Leslie Stephen 
in this month's Nineteenth Century.' 
18 



258 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The last proof-sheets of the ' History ' were corrected 
during the summer holidays in Holland, and Lecky 
afterwards went with his wife to Chamounix, Aix-les- 
Bains, Grenoble, Hyeres, and home by Paris. From 
Grenoble they made an expedition to the Grande 
Chartreuse, which is reached by a magnificent road 
leading through a deep wild gorge. The monastery 
lies at the foot of a range of mountains in the silence 
and solitude of the 'Desert/ the place originally se- 
lected by St. Bruno, the great founder of the Order. 
Lecky spent a night under its roof and was greatly 
interested in the visit, though intercourse with silent 
monks is necessarily of a limited description. 1 

In October 1890 the last two volumes of the ' History' 
came out. They were exclusively devoted to Ireland, 
and included the history of the Rebellion and the Union. 
The reviewers were unanimous in considering them as 
the worthy completion of a great work. Even those 
who did not agree with his political conclusions paid 
tribute to his great qualities as an historian and a 
writer. All felt that at last they had a true account 
of the Rebellion and the Union — written not only 
with a full mastery of all the available sources, but 
with that wise and unbiassed appreciation of the facts 
for which all his writings were conspicuous. 

'Never before,' said the Quarterly Review, 'have 
Irish affairs been the subject of such minute investi- 
gation and detailed narrative. The first word must 
be one of grateful acknowledgment of the thoroughness 
and perfection of detail with which the story has been 
told. Only those who have had occasion to explore 
a few of the many sources of information, which Mr. 



1 There was an account of the visit in the Nineteenth Century 
of March 1891. 



APPRECIATIONS OF THE HISTORY 259 

Lecky has visited, can fully appreciate the vastness 
of his labour or the ability he has displayed in sifting 
from among the materials at his command the essen- 
tially important particulars.' 

Among those who had looked forward to the volumes 
was the late Duke of Argyll. Everyone who was ac- 
quainted with the Duke, or who has read his books, 
his articles, his speeches, and the record of his life, 
knows how able and versatile he was. A keen Unionist, 
he was also deeply interested in the agrarian problem 
in Ireland and in the history of the country, and various 
communications passed between him and Lecky on 
those subjects. They did not always agree, but there 
was great mutual respect. 

'I shall be anxious to see your chapters/ wrote the 
Duke; 'you seem to me always to write in so judicial a 
spirit, that I have no doubt I shall like them.' When 
the volumes came out he was one of the first to tell 
him that he had been reading them with the 'usual 
feeling of satisfaction which your sincere treatment 
of your subject is sure to give.' 

'You will forgive me,' wrote Dean Boyle, 'for con- 
gratulating you heartily on the completion of a great 
book; and as to the interest of the last two volumes, 
what can I say but what all have already said when 
they have finished them — that the impartiality and 
dignity of the narrative cannot be surpassed?' 

The tribute Lecky paid to the old Irish Brigade 
could not fail to touch those whose families had been 
connected with it. 'Your noble passage about the 
Irish Brigade,' wrote the daughter-in-law of O'Connell, 
'is worthy to rank with Thorwaldsen's "Memorial 
Lion" carved to the memory of Louis the Sixteenth's 
Swiss Guards on the Crag by Lucerne.' 

Friends across the Atlantic were no less appreciative. 



260 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'I do think,' wrote Judge Gowan from Canada, 'no 
fair-minded man could go over your last volumes 
without saying to himself, This is the work of an honest 
man who has patiently and laboriously gone to the 
root of everything, and has shown in all his conclusions 
a calm, judicial spirit, a manifest desire to arrive at 
truth. You have truly directed a powerful "search- 
light" into the dark ravines of Irish history/ 



CHAPTER X 



1890-1892. 



Revision of the ' History of the Eighteenth Century ' — Writes 
various essays: Ireland in the Light of History; Why Home 
Rule is Undesirable; Madame de Stael; Carlyle's Message 
to his Age; Sir Robert Peel's Private Correspondence — 
American Copyright Bill — Effects of Parnell divorce case 

— Litt.D. degree, Cambridge — T.C.D. dinner — Travels — 
Poems — National Portrait Gallery — Begins ' Democracy 
and Liberty' — Regius Professorship of History at Oxford 

— Royal Literary Fund — Letters on Home Rule — The 
Political Outlook — Sir Charles Gavan Duffy — Dublin 
University Tercentenary — General Election — Holiday in 
the Alps — ' The Political Value of History ' — Lord Tenny- 
son's death — Completion of the revised edition of the 
'History.' 

The completion of a long and arduous task, though a 
satisfaction, leaves a blank. ' It is a strange feeling/ 
Lecky wrote to Mr. Booth from Nimes in October 1890, 
'finishing a book which has taken nineteen years; 
stranger still, wanting a fixed task.' 

He did not, however, at once begin a long book. He 
wished to revise the 'History' carefully for a cabinet 
edition which was to come out early in 1892. The 
suggestion had been made to him at different times 
that it would be desirable to divide the Irish from the 
English part, so that each might be procured sepa- 
rately, and this he now wanted to carry out. It in- 
volved a good deal of rearranging, for though some 

261 



262 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

chapters were exclusively Irish, the history of the Irish 
penal laws formed part of a general review of the state 
of religious liberty in an English chapter. 

Writing to his friend Professor Tyndall, who had 
had a long illness, he says (February 3, 1891) : 

' I wonder whether you are able to go on with any 
scientific work. I always believe that nothing is so 
good for one as the calming influence of the kind of 
work we have made our own. I fear I shall some day 
miss mine — at least, until I can start something fresh. 
At present, however, I am abundantly occupied going 
over my whole " History " with a view to a cabinet 
edition, which will, I hope, appear next year. It is 
rather a thankless work, as probably no one will dis- 
cover any corrections; but there is a comfort in get- 
ting one's books as perfect as one can.' 

Various small tasks also came in his way. At the 
request of the editor of the North American Review he 
wrote two articles on Ireland. The first appeared in 
January 1891 under the title of ' Ireland in the Light of 
History' 5 1 the second, ' Why Home Rule is Undesirable/ 
in the following March. He also wrote a review in the 
American Forum 2 of Lady Blennerhassett's 'Madame 
de Stael/ which had lately been translated into English. 
Lecky had a great admiration for the brilliant gifts of 
the authoress, and for many years past a warm friend- 
ship existed between them and their families. The 
book, he wrote to her at the time, impressed him more 
and more as he read it, 'with a deep sense of its vast 
range of knowledge and sympathies.' 

He was asked by an old college friend, the Rev. 
Freeman Wills, to give a short Sunday address on Jan- 

1 This essay has now been published in the Historical and 
Political Essays. 
■> Ibid. 



COPYRIGHT 263 

uary 25, as an interlude in a musical entertainment 
at the Lambeth Polytechnic, and he selected for his 
subject Carlyle's 'Message to his Age/ to which his 
personal knowledge of Carlyle gave a special interest. 
It was afterwards published in the Contemporary 
Review of October 1891. 1 

In the summer he contributed an article on Pitt to 
'Chamber's Encyclopaedia/ and at the urgent request 
of Mr. Reeve he wrote a review of Sir Robert Peel's 
private correspondence which had lately been published 
by Mr. Parker. This came out in the Edinburgh 
Review of October 1891. 2 

That year there was at last a chance of an American 
Copyright Bill passing. Hitherto British authors had 
been entirely at the mercy of American publishers; 
and though, by some arrangement, they could some- 
times obtain a small royalty, there were no legal rights 
by which this could be enforced. Lecky held very 
strong views about literary property, which he con- 
sidered rested on 'the highest and simplest title by 
which property can be held — that of creation.' 3 He 
thought the argument altogether untrue that the author 
has no right to legal protection because he gives a form 
to ideas and knowledge which are floating in the 
intellectual atmosphere around him. 'An author 
claims no monopoly in his ideas, but the form in which 
he moulds them is so essentially the main element in 
the question that the distinction is for all practical 
purposes trivial. There is no idea in Gray's Elegy 
which has not passed through thousands of minds; 
Gray alone gave them the form which is immortal.' 4 



1 Published among the His- 3 Democracy and Liberty, 
torical and Political Essays. cabinet edition, vol. i. p. 218. 

2 Ibid. i Ibid. p. 219. 



264 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

He took a good deal of trouble in the matter, com- 
municating with influential people in both countries 
and endeavouring to smooth over difficulties. 

' I think it so very kind of you/ he wrote to Mr. Lea 
on March 22, 1891, Ho have written to me so promptly 
and so fully about the new Copyright Bill. I con- 
gratulate you very sincerely on the part you have 
taken in a work which will probably have deeper and 
more far-reaching consequences than the immense 
majority of the measures which on either side of the 
Atlantic fill the minds of men. As for the points of 
possible difficulty, I have done what I could. . . .' 

Though the Bill involved irksome complications for 
British authors, yet it established a recognition of 
their rights and settled, as far as it went, an impor- 
tant question. 

The political horizon meanwhile had undergone a 
great change. Tn 1890 the Home Rule cause received 
a severe blow from an unexpected quarter. It may 
be remembered that the Parnell divorce case had 
suddenly roused the indignation of the Nonconfor- 
mists; that they had obliged Mr. Gladstone to break 
with the Irish leader; and that the Irish Catholic 
Church had now turned against him and caused a 
division among Irish Home-Rulers. To the philos- 
opher the situation presented a curious aspect. 

' We most of us here believe/ Lecky wrote to Judge 
Gowan in December 1890, 'that Home Rule is broken 
up for an indefinite period. It seems very unlikely 
that, after the schism in Ireland and the shock the 
Nonconformists have received, the next Parliament 
will be in favour of Home Rule; and if it is, the major- 
ity is almost certain to be far too small to carry it; 
while Gladstone, being just eighty-one, can hardly 
live through more than one more Parliament. Besides, 



CAMBRIDGE HONORARY DEGREE 265 

Parnell has succeded in pledging the whole Home 
Rule party in Ireland to accept no measure which does 
not give them the control of the Constabulary and 
of the land. ... I am glad of it, but I do not think 
all this raises one's respect for the intelligence of the 
good people of these islands — the English Noncon- 
formists, who were perfectly unshaken by all the reve- 
lations of conspiracy, outrage, and organised plunder 
made before the Special Commission, and yet thrown 
into hysterics about Mrs. O'Shea; the Irish populace, 
through the mere love of a fight, throwing up the one 
chance of their Home Rule!' 

And in February 1891 he wrote to Mr. Lea: 'The 
Irish question here is, I think, at last beginning some- 
what to recede, and socialistic or semi-socialistic ques- 
tions are rapidly assuming the first place. Mrs. O'Shea 
has certainly changed profoundly the prospects and 
currents of English politics — with such wisdom the 
world is governed!' 

In the summer of 1891 Lecky received an honorary 
degree at Cambridge, at the same time as Lord Wal- 
singham, Lord Dufferin, Sir Alfred Lyall, Professor 
Archibald Geikie, Sir William Flower, Professor 
Metschnikoff, and the composer Dvorak. He and his 
wife enjoyed the hospitality of the Master of Trinity 
and Mrs. Butler; and among the guests was Madame 
Albani, a charming woman as well as a great singer, 
who took the leading part in an oratorio of Dvorak's 
which was heard for the first time during the festivities. 
Lecky much appreciated the honour of the degree and 
the very kind reception he met with; but he never 
much liked, as he wrote to Mr. Booth afterwards, 
'to stand up before an audience, dressed like the 
Scarlet Lady,' and to hear a long speech about his 
own merits, even though, happily, in a tongue which 
was not generally understood. 



266 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The day of his return to London he attended the 
yearly Trinity College Dublin dinner, which was given 
this time in the Middle Temple Hall. Lord Ashbourne 
presided, and Lecky had to propose the Houses of 
Parliament, to which the Archbishop of Dublin and 
Mr. Plunket (now Lord Rathmore, who was then M.P. 
for Dublin University and First Commissioner of 
Works) responded. Three Gold Medallists of. the old 
Historical Society were thus brought together once 
more, and their meeting on this occasion revived many 
old memories. 'I will not resist,' wrote Mr. Plunket 
to Lecky next day, ' to write you one little line to tell 
you how thoroughly I enjoyed your most charming 
speech yesterday evening — so eloquent, so graceful, 
and in such perfect good taste. It was to me like a 
very pleasant whiff of fresh air from the far-off hills 
of our old friendship — a friendship which I am glad 
to know holds fast and firmly.' 

Being more free in his movements after the ' History ' 
was finished, Lecky took various journeys during the 
year. In the spring he and his wife made an excursion 
to the chateaux of the Loire, some of which, besides 
their great historic and architectural interest, are very 
picturesquely situated in small but pretty grounds. 
They spent part of the summer in Ireland, paying on 
the way a visit to their old friend Lady Stanley of 
Alderley at Penrhos, near Holyhead, a charming place 
with beautiful gardens. As Lecky had no researches 
to make in Ireland on this occasion, he and his wife 
travelled about a good deal. They visited their friends ; 
thejr went along the west coast, stayed some days 
at Mrs. Blake's 1 hotel at Renvyle, and made many 



1 Mrs. Blake, who belonged to a good old Irish family, had 
turned her house into a hotel in consequence of the land troubles. 



poems 267 

pleasant excursions in the beautiful surrounding 
country. 

From Ireland they went to Holland, and afterwards 
to the Italian lakes — Locarno, Pallanza, and Bellaggio 
— but the season being too far advanced for the lakes, 
they went for sunshine to Monte Carlo, staying at 
Bergamo and Milan on the way. 

'I had not before/ he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'stopped 
at Monte Carlo (which is but just opening and very 
quiet), but it is a place with wonderful attractions to 
anyone who, like us, is not addicted to gambling: 
lovely climate and scenery, excellent hotels, music, 
reading rooms, &c. Next week we start for fogs and 
the other charms of London, where we shall probably 
be on the 16th, and where, I hope, we shall not stir 
for a long time.' 

In the autumn of 1891 Lecky brought out a small 
volume of poetry which he had written at different 
times. It is generally acknowledged that when a man 
has attained eminence in one field, any attempt on 
his part to strike out another line is jealously watched 
and severely criticised. This was the case when Lecky 
published his Poems. Some of the reviewers were 
very amiable and appreciative; many were hyper- 
critical. The chief fault found with the poems was that 
they were old-fashioned; but if they did not suit the 
taste of the younger generation, they found more 
favour with the older one. Mr. Locker-Lampson * and 
Mr. Aubrey de Vere 2 both expressed their appreciation. 
The former wrote that, remembering the pleasure he 



1 Mr. Locker-Lampson pub- Legends of the Saxon Saints 

lished the Lyra Elegantiarum and many other poems, as 

and other books. well as essays. 
2 Mr. Aubrey de Vere wrote 



268 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

had derived from 'An Old Song/ he had hastened to 
secure a copy of the poems; that they took his fancy 
and quite suited his taste. 'They are short and lucid, 
simple in language, and sincere in spirit. . . singularly 
unlike the poetry of the present day, with its straining 
after originality of thought and expression.' Friends 
who knew how reserved Lecky was by nature welcomed 
the poems as the expression of his more intimate self. 
'I am very glad,' wrote Sir Alfred Lyall, who had read 
them with 'great interest and sympathy/ 'that you 
have let us all have in this form some of the inner 
thoughts, impressions and reminiscences gathered 
during the journey thus far through the "varied scenes 
of life.'" 

There were some who thought that the poems were 
too melancholy; but Lecky's explanation was that they 
were written much more in melancholy than in happy 
moments, and therefore gave a disproportionately 
gloomy impression. Poetry, he said, lent itself much 
more naturally to the shade than to the sunlight, and 
he could not write in verse as he could in prose in such 
a mood as he wished. In the course of time he received 
requests from various quarters to allow some of the 
verses to be included in anthologies or set to music. 
Sir George Scharf, the Director of the National Por- 
trait Gallery, was so pleased with Lecky's poem on 
the subject of the Gallery and with 'the noble manner' 
in which it was treated, that he asked permission to 
insert a few lines from it among the quotations in the 
preface of the Catalogue. He had desired for some 
time past that Lecky should be a member of the Board 
of Trustees, but respected his wish not to accept any 
appointment from a Liberal Government (although, 
of course, this was purely honorary). It was not till 
1895, after Sir George Scharf's death, and when Mr. 



BEGINS 'DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY' 269 

Lionel Cust succeeded him, that Lecky became a 
trustee. 

On his return to London in the middle of November, 
Lecky had his first bad attack of influenza, which pros- 
trated him for some three weeks. The ' Memoires du 
General Marbot' was one of the books which helped 
him to while away some weary hours of inevitable 
weakness and depression when he could do no work. He 
went to Brighton, where he got somewhat stronger, but 
it was some months before he was quite himself again. 

'I was shut up in the house in London for three 
weeks,' he wrote to Mr. Booth from Brighton, Decem- 
ber 11, 'but got down here last Wednesday and am 
getting on very well, though still leading an invalid 
life and obliged to condescend to the ignominy of a 
bath-chair.' 

The proof-sheets of the cabinet edition occupied his 
time that winter, and he also began a new book on politi- 
cal and social subjects about which he had thought a 
great deal — afterwards published under the title of 
'Democracy and Liberty.' The cabinet edition of 
the History came out volume by volume, and before the 
second appeared a new edition was required of the 
first. 

'They originally printed 1500 copies,' he wrote to 
Mr. Booth, February 12, 1892, 'but have already had 
to give orders for 1000 more, which, for a book that 
has been so long before the public and according to 
the moderate measure of my popularity, is doing very 
well indeed. I am going all over the proof-sheets 
again, and have given an immense amount of time and 
trouble to making it as good as I can. I am also 
gradually launching on something else which will, I 
hope, some day take a definite form, and will at least 
give me occupation.' 



270 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

After the death of Mr. Freeman in the spring of 
1892, Lord Salisbury, with the authorisation of Queen 
Victoria, offered him, in very kind and nattering terms, 
the Regius Professorship of History at Oxford. Hon- 
oured as he felt by the distinction, and tempting though 
it was in many ways, he decided, however, not to 
accept it. He did not believe, as he wrote to Lord 
Salisbury, that he had any aptitude or vocation for 
lecturing and other academic duties; and he felt con- 
vinced that what little good he could do (even for 
University students) would be best done by keeping 
steadily to his own line of work. 

Among the many public institutions in which Lecky 
was interested the Royal Literary Fund occupied a 
foremost place. It gave relief to authors of undoubted 
merit whose works were unremunerative or who had 
suffered from reverses or ill-health, and to their widows 
and children. Lord Derby had been its president 
since 1876, and Lecky was one of its vice-presidents 
and a member of the committee. The yearly dinner 
was a great source of revenue to the Fund, and much 
trouble was always taken to secure a chairman whose 
name and personality appealed to a literary public. 
In the spring of 1892 Lord Kelvin had consented to 
occupy the chair, but unfortunately at the last moment 
he was prevented from doing so by a family bereave- 
ment. Lecky was urgently asked by the president to 
fill his place, and though he had but a day's notice, 
he felt it his duty to do so. It involved making the 
speech of the evening, besides various shorter ones. 
His great gift of speaking enabled him to acquit him- 
self of the task to everyone's satisfaction. 

Lord Derby, whose failing health had prevented 
him from attending, afterwards sent him the resolu- 
tion passed by the committee, adding, 'Never was a 



LETTERS ON HOME RULE 271 

vote of thanks better earned, and the committee will 
not soon forget the service you rendered them at a 
moment of difficulty. It is not everyone who either 
would or could undertake a speech of that kind at a 
few hours' notice.' Lord Derby always maintained 
that Lecky was one of the best after-dinner speakers 
he knew, and he regretted not being able to hear him 
on this occasion. 

During the summer of 1892 the General Election 
absorbed all atention, and the spectre of Home Rule 
was again within sight. Conventions were held in 
the great centres of Ireland — first at Belfast, then in 
Dublin. Lecky was once more called upon to take 
his share in fighting the battle of the Union. Not 
being able to go to the Dublin Convention on June 
23, he was asked to write a letter which might be read 
at the meeting and published. In it he reviewed all 
that the Unionist Government had done in six years; 
how it had not only raised Ireland from a condition 
of disgraceful anarchy to prosperity and peace, but 
how also it had earned the confidence of the nation 
by its conduct of foreign affairs, by its restoration of 
the Navy to its old efficiency, by its administration of 
finance, and by the many important measures it had 
carried. 

' But the chief of all its merits is that it has defeated 
a great crime and averted a great calamity. When 
the glamour of party rhetoric shall have passed away, 
history will have little difficulty in estimating the 
character of the English statesman who . . . delib- 
erately attempted to place the government of an 
integral part of the Empire in the hands of men whom 
he had himself denounced in the strongest language 
as both dishonest and disloyal. After the overwhelm- 
ing evidence collected by the Parnell Commissioners, 



272 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

and after the sentence of the Judges, it is impossible for 
any candid man to doubt that the Parnellite movement 
was essentially a treasonable conspiracy, promoting its 
ends by calculated fraud, violence and lawlessness, 
by an amount of cruelty and oppression seldom equalled 
in modern times, by constant and systematic appeals 
to the worst passions of the Irish people. No respect- 
able Government ever was or ever will be founded on 
such methods. Any attempt to place such men at 
the head of Irish affairs would, in my opinion, only 
lead to widespread anarchy and ruin, very possibly to 
Civil War and Separation.' 

He received the ' heartiest thanks ' of the committee 
of the Southern Unionist Convention for the ' admirable 
letter' he had written. 

' It produced a great effect at the Convention,' wrote 
Professor Dowden, who did so much himself for the 
Unionist cause, ' and, what is more important, it has 
been reprinted in all the most important papers and 
will produce an effect we cannot doubt on thoughtful 
readers among the English and Scotch electorate. 
None of us can remember any meeting in Dublin at 
all approaching that of last Thursday in importance. 
Both the Leinster Hall and the large annexe were rilled 
with chosen delegates from every constituency outside 
Ulster. The arrangements were excellent, there was 
no confusion, and there was entire unanimity of feel- 
ing. The deputation from Ulster (including the Lord 
Mayor of Belfast and the Mayor of Deny) was received 
with great enthusiasm, and as the best effect of the 
Convention, the loyalty of North to South and of 
South to North was assured for the future. It will be 
impossible to separate us now.' 

He was asked to write a letter for the Scotsman, and 
he clearly and emphatically explained the whole situ- 
ation to Scotch electors, warning them of all that Mr. 



THE ELECTION OP 1892 273 

Gladstone's Home Rule policy would involve. ' Scotch 
Liberal Unionists and Conservative candidates owe you 
their best thanks/ wrote a prominent Unionist, Mr. 
Arthur Elliot, 'for the excellent letter appearing in 
to-day's Scotsman. 1 Appearing in the same paper as 
Mr. Gladstone's Glasgow speech it comes in admirably.' 
He had also once more to make it clear in a letter to 
the Times 2 that passages from a chapter in his early 
'Leaders' which had been suppressed in the edition 
of 1871, and which Mr. Gladstone had used in his 
Clapham speech, had no application to the present 
situation. It was a powerful letter, containing, as 
one friend wrote, 'more than five hundred speeches 
put together by previous speakers.' 

It was not a question, wrote Lecky, between Pro- 
testant and Catholic. 'It is a question between hon- 
esty and dishonesty, between loyalty and treason, 
between individual freedom and organised outrage 
and tyranny;' and he illustrated this with a picture 
of the state of the country, and referred to the great 
demonstration in Ulster which seemed 'likely to form 
one of the great landmarks in Irish history. Nothing 
approaching it has been seen there since the Volun- 
teer Convention of 1782.' 'Bravo! Bravo!' wrote 
Professor Tyndall, in his usual enthusiastic way. 'A 
thousand times, Bravo!' 

The elections brought in the Liberals with a small 
majority, and Mr. Gladstone — who was now eighty- 
three — saw one more opportunity of bringing forward 
his Irish policy. 

Lecky was asked to write an article on the results 
of the elections for the Fortnightly Review of August. 
It came out as one of a series by various politicians 



The Scotsman, July 4, 1892. 2 The Times, June 21, 1892. 
19 



274 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

under the heading of 'The Political Outlook.' He 
showed that Mr. Gladstone's majority was certainly 
not due to the conversion of the nation to Home Rule; 
that the great Unionist triumphs at Dublin and Belfast 
had been profoundly significant, andr the immense 
reduction of Mr. Gladstone's own majority proved how 
little enthusiasm was felt among the electors for the 
measure with which he was specially identified. But 
although a Home Rule Bill was not likely to pass, the 
accession of a Home Rule Government might inflict 
great injury on Ireland by shaking the sense of security 
which she needed above all things and by giving fresh 
encouragement to the elements of disorder. 

'Gladstone's majority,' wrote one of the greatest 
military authorities to Lecky on July 18, 'means Mr. 
in Ireland, and that means the complete demoral- 
isation of the Gonstabulary.' 

The vicissitudes of politics did not interfere with 
the regard Sir Charles Gavan Duffy had always, shown 
for Lecky, and whenever he published a book he gave 
him a copy. That summer he sent him a pamphlet 
on a New Constitution for Ireland and his 'Conversa- 
tions with Carlyle.' In acknowledging the former, 
Lecky wrote that as a matter of machinery he thought 
the scheme could hardly be greatly improved on, and 
that he was ready to admit that if it was worked by 
men of the same stamp as himself [Sir Charles Gavan 
Duffy] it would probably succeed. But that as to 
the practicability of safely entrusting the men who had 
obtained the leadership of Irish popular politics, and 
who would undoubtedly direct a Home Rule Parlia- 
ment, with the maintenance of law and order, property 
and contract, and individual freedom, they must agree 
to differ. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy wrote that he was 
much gratified by Mr. Lecky's recognition of the fact 



SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY 275 

that he did all he could to frame an Irish Constitution 
designed to be just to every class of Irishmen. 'Of 
course I understand/ he added, 'why you think it 
would fail, and if I had the making of the men you 
would probably have nothing to complain of.' To 
Lecky the Home Rule question was essentially, as 
he more than once said, a question of confidence in 
the men who would be placed in power. 'If Irish 
opinion/ he wrote to Mr. Booth in 1886, 'followed 
property and responsibility, I should not have the 
least objection to Home Rule in moderation; and I 
always think that the old Parliament of the gentle- 
men of Ireland deserves much more credit than it has 
received.' In acknowledging Sir C. Gavan Duffy's 
'Conversations with Carlyle/ Lecky wrote, June 2, 
1892: 

' Although you told me that I must not do so, I 
must write a line to thank you very sincerely for your 
new book which I have been reading again with keen 
interest. It brings back a flood of recollections to 
me. I have often heard Carlyle talk of you and always 
with kindness. The last year or eighteen months of 
his life was very sad — a period of extreme bodily and 
mental weakness. I used to drive with him regularly 
once a week, chiefly to light his pipe and lift to his lips 
a tonic which he had to take — as he could do neither 
himself, and he used to sink into long unbroken silences. 
He was still, however, able to take in a little reading, 
and just before his last illness, I read to him some of 
Burns' letters — the last book, I think, he tried to 
read. 1 Both my wife and I saw him when very near 
the end, and again when all was over, and I was one 



1 Sir Charles Gavan Duffy Carlyle's latter days in the 
asked leave to introduce next edition of the Conversa- 
Lecky's 'graphic picture' of tions. 



276 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

of three who went up to his funeral at Ecclefechan. I 
must thank you also for your kind letter. I am glad that 
you can at least understand my point of view, and 
that Irish politics — which have a peculiar power to 
sunder and to acidulate — have not extinguished your 
kind feeling about me.' 

Early in July, while the elections were going on, Trin- 
ity College Dublin celebrated its Tercentenary, and 
Lecky was invited to take part in it. He and his wife 
were the guests of Lord and Lady Wolseley at the 
Royal Hospital, where Lord and Lady Dufferin and Sir 
Alfred Lyall were also staying. On the first day — 
July 5 — all the University members and delegates 
walked in procession to St. Patrick's Cathedral, where 
a solemn service opened the proceedings. One of the 
most interesting ceremonies was the presentation of 
addresses in the Leinster Hall by the foreign and other 
delegates in their various costumes — one of them in 
a black gown and large ruff, who, though not a Dutch- 
man, might have walked out of one of Frans Hals' 
paintings. 1 Some represented ancient and venerable 
universities, such as that of Bologna, which had cele- 
brated its eighth centenary, or that of Leyden, which 
was connected with the famous siege in the Eighty 
Years' War. There were a variety of entertainments, 
and a huge banquet in the Leinster Hall crowned the 
proceedings. The speaking on the occasion struck 
strangers as being of a very high order. The Master 
of Trinity, Cambridge, proposed the toast of Trinity 
College, coupling with it the names of the Provost, 
Mr. Plunket, M.P. for the University, and Lecky. 
The Provost, Dr. Salmon, made a speech full of sub- 
stance, good sense, and humour. Mr. Plunket, in an 



1 He was the delegate from the University of Rostock. 



T.C.D. CENTENARY 277 

eloquent speech, recalled the old college days and 
friendships, and struck a responsive chord among the 
audience when he said that many of the distinguished 
men present would no doubt gladly exchange all the 
successes and triumphs of their later years for the 
happier and more careless days of their youth, and 
would join heartily in the sentiment of their own poet, 
Tom Moore, who, he imagined, was looking back on 
his experiences in Trinity College when he sang in 
those most melodious verses: 

'Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning 

The close of our day, the calm eve of our night; 
Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning, 
Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best light.' 

He made a graceful allusion to Lecky, his old friend 
and contemporary, whose triumphs ' as a brilliant and 
faithful historian had not won him away from oratory, 
in which he was no less distinguished at the time when 
they were both competitors in the old Historical 
Society.' 

Lecky, in responding, spoke of the great part Trin- 
ity College had played in Irish life, throwing open its 
degrees to Roman Catholics more than sixty years 
before the English universities, and counting among 
its pupils great men who had distinguished themselves 
in the most various walks of life and held the most 
opposite opinions. 

' Whatever its enemies may say of it, it has been the 
University of the Nation, and not merely of a party or 
sect. ... Of all our Irish institutions,' he said in his 
peroration, 'I believe Trinity College Dublin is that 
which has divided us least and has excited beyond its 
borders and its connections the least animosity and 
the largest measure of genuine good-will. May the 



278 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

spirit that animated this University in the past still 
continue. Whatever fate may be in store for us, what- 
ever new powers may arise, may this University at 
least be true to itself. In a country torn by sectarian 
and political strife, may it continue to bring together 
in friendly competition students of different creeds 
and different political colours, and teach them to 
respect each other and teach them to respect them- 
selves. In an atmosphere hot and feverish with over- 
strained rhetoric and passionate exaggerations, may it 
continue the home of sober thought, of serious study, 
of impartial judgment, of an earnest desire for truth, 
building up slowly, steadily and laboriously the nobler 
and more enduring elements of national life.' 

'I am sorry you were not at the Tercentenary/ 
Lecky afterwards wrote to Mr. Booth. 'It was a very 
striking sight: the immense number of universities 
represented; the curious and brilliant dresses (it 
reminded me of the opening of the General Council); 
the great number of remarkable men collected together; 
and the admirable behaviour of the crowd through 
which we had to walk in procession from T.C.D. to St. 
Patrick's, who never pressed or uttered a single 
disobliging word, though it was in the middle of the 
election, when strong passions might have been 
aroused. There was an enormous dinner, in which we 
all appeared in our red (or other) gowns. The Pro- 
vost, Plunket, and myself had to answer for T.C.D., 
and Plunket's speech was an extremely beautiful 
one.' 

That year Lecky began his holiday by going to the 
Italian Alps, which he had wished to see for some time 
past. He drove from Bourg St. Maurice to Gour- 
mayeur over the Little St. Bernard, found the pass 
full of beauty, 'with charming short cuts through fir 
woods — crocus-covered fields with a few Alp roses 



TRAVELS IN THE ITALIAN ALPS 279 

in bloom, and a few snow-drifts still lying on the road.' 
He stopped at the top with an interesting Italian 
party, and looked through the library of a curious 
old priest who had lived there, winter and summer, 
for more than thirty years. He thought Courmayeur 
'one of the most charming places in the Alps; the 
beauty of Chamounix without its tourist rush — an 
almost ideal hotel — very pleasant society — beauti- 
ful short as well as long walks.' He was delighted 
with Gressoney, but especially with Ponte Grande 
and Macugnaga. 'It is hardly possible to exaggerate 
the grandeur and beauty of the scenery about here/ 
he wrote; and he thought the air delightful. There 
were no English, but an intelligent German politi- 
cian, with whom he talked a great deal. When rain 
came he had his books to fall back on — Zola's ' De- 
bacle,' 'a very painful but very terrible story, none 
of the horrors of war being spared, and I think its 
influence will be decidedly for good. I have been 
comparing it with Erckmann-Chatrian's "Waterloo," 
which I found here and have read through.' He was 
also reading 'Le Gouvernement dans la Democratie/ 
an important book by the distinguished Belgian writer, 
M. de Laveleye, of whom he had seen a good deal; and 
he was never without a volume of Shakespeare. He 
went down the Val d'Anzasca, had a lovely sail over 
Lago Maggiore, drove over the St. Gothard, and met 
his wife at Innsbruck. 1 Together they went to the 
Dolomites, which he had never yet explored. He very 
much admired the soft beauty of the colouring com- 
bined with the grandeur of the scenery. They stayed 
at San Martino di Gastrozza, a perfectly beautiful 



1 The passages quoted are had gone to Bayreuth with 
from letters to his wife, who her sisters. 



280 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

spot in the very heart of the Dolomites, and they 
were much fascinated by those wonderful jagged rocks 
which change their colour almost like the chameleon. 
Tinged with a warm red hue under sunny skies, they 
look black and threatening in gloomy weather, and 
on a clear night appear white, like weird gigantic 
spectres. 

Later on they went to Pieve di Cadore, where Titian 
was born, and where he drew the inspiration of his 
beautiful backgrounds; to Cortina, Landro, Nieder- 
dorf, Botzen, Meran, all centres of charming excur- 
sions. At Meran they saw a stirring representation 
of the struggle led by Andreas Hofer, in 1809, for the 
independence of the Tyrol. It was given in the open 
air, and acted by the townspeople with great dramatic 
power and with that sense of measure which is the 
essence of all good acting. 

The transition from 'those high sunny quarters' to 
the London atmosphere — ' dim pale figures creeping 
about through a smoky limbo ' — ■ was always very 
depressing to him; but he had to be back early in 
October, as he had promised to be president of the 
Birmingham and Midland Institute for the year and 
to give the Presidential Address on the 10th. He chose 
for his subject 'The Political Value of History,' 1 treat- 
ing it in his own philosophic way and showing in what 
spirit history should be studied to be really useful. 
In the course of his address he laid stress on the fact 
that the politics of the day are too much concen- 
trated upon an immediate issue, taking no account 
of the possible ultimate consequences of political 
measures, which are often far more important than 



1 This has been included in the Historical and Political 
Essays. 



DEATH OF LORD TENNYSON 281 

their immediate fruits. 'History is never more valu- 
able than when it enables us, standing as on a 
height, to look beyond the smoke and turmoil of 
our petty quarrels, and to detect in the slow devel- 
opments of the past the great permanent forces that 
are steadily bearing nations onwards to improvement 
or decay.' 

Birmingham once more interested him greatly by 
its wonderful corporate spirit — stronger, he thought, 
than in any other English town — and its admirable 
public institutions. 

No sooner had he returned to London than he was 
called upon to attend the funeral of Lord Tennyson 
as pall-bearer. The loss of friend after friend is one 
of the severest penalties of increasing years, and within 
the last few months Lecky had lost many whom he 
valued: Lord Arthur Russell, Sir William Gregory, 
Sir Lewis Pelly, Mr. Henry Doyle, and now Lord 
Tennyson. His 'was a very happy and easy end/ 
wrote Lecky, 'to a long and glorious life/ and the 
funeral at Westminster Abbey struck him as less 
sombre than usual, partly from a Union Jack taking 
the place of the pall. When the present Lord Tenny- 
son asked him, in the following spring, to contribute 
some pages of reminiscences to the Life he was writing 
of his father, Lecky readily did so. ' Very best thanks/ 
wrote Lord Tennyson, ' for your admirably true letter. 
It will be very valuable for future generations as well 
as for this.' 

In November 1892 he finished the revision of the 
'History' for the cabinet edition, to which he had 
devoted much time and care. 'I have finished the 
long task of my cabinet edition/ he wrote to Mr. 
Booth at the end of November, ' and the final volume 
will appear in about a fortnight. I think the separa- 



282 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

tion of the Irish from the English part has been a 
great improvement, and that the book as a whole 
is more accurate. It has been a lOng business, but it 
is worth while getting one's books as perfect as one 
can.' 



CHAPTER XI 



1892-1894. 



'Thoughts on History' — Home Rule Bill, 1893 — Articles on 
Home Rule — Carrigart — Letter on the situation — Albert 
Hall meeting — Irish delegates at Hatfield — Death of 
Lord Derby — Defeat of Home Rule Bill — President of 
the Cheltonian Society — Vosbergen — Mr. Rhodes' ' His- 
tory ' — ' Israel among the Nations ' — ' The Eye of the 
Grey Monk ' — Death of Sir Andrew Clark — Lecture at 
the Imperial Institute — Pessimism — French Institute — 
Memoir of Lord Derby — Due d'Aumale — Resignation of 
Mr. Gladstone — Lord Rosebery succeeds — Madonna di 
Campiglio — Mr. Froude's death — Tribute to Lord Rus- 
sell — Canada and Copyright. 

In the winter Lecky worked at his new book, and he 
wrote for the Forum an article, which appeared in 
February 1893, under the title of 'The Art of Writing 
History' 1 and in which he expatiated on the various 
methods of writing history. 

The Liberal Government had initiated their Irish 
policy by appointing a Commission to inquire into the 
case of the evicted tenants, and an English judge — 
an Irishman by birth — whose Home Rule proclivi- 
ties were well known, was selected to preside over it. 
The judge did not conceal his political bias; and the 
Commission proved a fiasco. Lecky, who was on 



1 Published in the Historical and Political Essays as ' Thoughts 
on History,' the title he had first selected. 

283 



284 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

friendly terms with this judge, happened to meet him 
at the Athenaeum on his return from Ireland. 'So 
you have come to resume your judicial character/ 
said Lecky. ' Yes/ replied the Judge, ' unless I have 
left it behind me;' whereupon Lecky rejoined, 'No 
one could accuse you of that!' 

Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill was brought in 
early in the session of 1893, and obliged Unionists in 
and out of Parliament to continue their strenuous 
opposition and keep the country informed of the 
dangers of such a measure. 

Lecky wrote, at the request of various people, some 
short articles on Home Rule from different points of 
view; one appeared in the National Observer of March 
4, 1893, under the heading 'Lights on Home Rule'; 
another, 'The Case against Home Rule from an His- 
torical Point of View,' in the Pall Mall Gazette of July 
24. Both were republished in pamphlet form, with 
letters and papers by other prominent Liberal Union- 
ists. The most important of Lecky's contributions was 
an article in the Contemporary Review of May 1893, 
' Some Aspects of Home Rule.' The Bill, he thought, 
was in some respects even more unworkable than the 
previous one, and it was certainly worse for the land- 
owners. While the Bill of 1886 was at least combined 
with a scheme for settling the land question, in the 
present Bill there was 'not a single guarantee of the 
smallest value for the protection of landed property.' 

'The profound dishonesty of this legislation is 
sufficiently clear/ wrote Lecky in the Contemporary 
Review, 'and it is certainly not surprising that the 
whole body of the Irish landlords, both Catholic and 
Protestant, are arrayed against it. Few incidents in 
the present controversy have been more striking 
than the powerful and touching manifesto against 



IRELAND IN 1893 285 

Mr. Gladstone's policy which was issued by the lead- 
ing Catholic gentry of Ireland. Most of these have 
been lifelong Liberals. Nearly all have been con- 
stant residents in Ireland. Many of them bear names 
that have been conspicuous in dark and evil days 
for the purest and most self-sacrificing patriotism, and 
the son of O'Connell and the grandson of Grattan are 
among them.' 

At Easter he took a short holiday in the West of 
Ireland; he stayed at Carrigart, where the Rosapenna 
Hotel had just been opened, and he delighted once 
more in the ' most magnificent cliff scenery in enchant- 
ingly beautiful weather.' From Carrigart he wrote to 
his American correspondent, Mr. Lea, about the condi- 
tion in which he found Ireland at the time: 

'I am afraid that I have been a very long time in 
thanking you for your last kind and interesting letter, 
and I avail myself of a short holiday which I am taking 
in your neighbourhood — for at this extreme west of 
Ireland there is nothing but the Atlantic between us 
— to do so. I am extremely interested in the account 
you give me of your work, and full of admiration for 
the courage that can alone enable you to grapple with 
such a vast mass of material as lies before you. I 
think we have here in Ireland one of the most striking 
instances I know of the extent to which Catholic ascen- 
dancy can go. Two very interesting election trials 
which lately took place show clearly what terrible 
spiritual threats are habitually employed for election- 
eering purposes, that not only the pulpit and the 
altar, but even the confessional, is made use of for 
those purposes. A return has just been published 
showing that at the last General Election in Ireland 
the illiterates (who profess to be unable to read the 
names on the ballot paper) were more than one in five. 
We have had what is considered an excellent system 
of national education since 1831 — many years before 



286 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

England possessed such a thing — and in Great Brit- 
ain the proportion of illiterate voters is about one in 
a hundred. It is well known that numbers of these 
Irish electors are not illiterate, but are compelled to 
declare themselves so in order that they should vote 
through their priests and that there should be no 
possibility of evasion. The intimidation which those 
substantial farmers who dread Home Rule (no small 
number) undergo can hardly be exaggerated. Only 
a few days ago a gentleman who mixes much with them 
told me that again and again numbers of this class 
have said to him, " We dread this Home Rule as much 
as you do — but what can we do? If we signed a peti- 
tion against it we could not appear at the chapel, and 
in the market no one would be allowed to buy from 
us." In the meantime, in order to sustain the move- 
ment, the hope is constantly held out that Home Rule 
will give the people the land for nothing or at some 
ridiculously low price. All contracts in land in Ire- 
land having been already more than once broken by 
the Imperial Parliament, the idea has rapidly spread 
that under an Irish Parliament the last vestiges of 
agrarian contracts would disappear, and it is at least 
certain that the whole police force would pass into the 
hands of men who have been the authors of the " No 
Rent" movement — of the " Plan of Campaign" and 
of all the violence and fraud that have prevailed in 
Ireland during the last few years. 

'I suppose there never was a time when the oppo- 
sition between numbers on the one side, and intelli- 
gence, property and industry on the other was so 
marked. The whole body of the Protestants of all 
denominations, all the Catholic as well as all the Pro- 
testant gentry, and at least 99 in 100 of the men who 
take any leading part in manufactures, trade, and 
other forms of finance and industry, think that Home 
Rule such as Mr. Gladstone proposes would ruin Ire- 
land. All the chief Irish securities have fallen in a 



HOME RULE BILL OF 1893 287 

panic. Mortgages are being called in. Trade orders 
are suspended, and a steady drain of capital from the 
country is taking place. At the same time the six 
Ulster counties, which form incomparably the richest, 
the most industrious and the most resolute portion of 
Ireland, are at fever point; the people there are, I 
believe, thoroughly armed; they are rapidly organising, 
and they declare with the greatest emphasis (and I, 
at least, believe them) that they will never pay taxes 
or yield obedience to a Parliament under the guidance 

of such men as . This year the Bill cannot pass 

— if it does not break down in Committee it will be 
thrown out by the Lords, and there are many chances 
that Mr. Gladstone's small majority will break up. 
But the immense proportion of perfectly ignorant men 
in our electorate makes all political calculation for 
the future chimerical, and the growing habit of bribing 
classes by great offers is very marked. Unfortunately 
we have not your Constitution, and a simple majority 
may pull the whole Constitution to pieces. Excuse 
all this politics — of course, the subject is one of which 
we are very full. . . . 

'I was greatly pleased with the poem on Drake 
which your illustrious fellow-citizen, Dr. Mitchell, 
was so kind as to send me. A charming book full of 
political wisdom has just come out, which ought spe- 
cially to appeal to Americans — the " Souvenirs de 
Tocqueville." I am myself duly launched on a new 
book, but it has not yet taken very definite form, and 
will probably occupy me for nearly three years. I do 
not mean it to be more than two moderate volumes. 
At fifty-five one has already passed the age at which 
Dante says one should begin to draw in sail.' 

The debates on the second reading of the Home Rule 
Bill began early in April 1893. Meanwhile some 1200 
delegates came over from all parts of Ireland to protest 
against it. 



288 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

On April 22, the very day the second reading had 
been passed by the normal small Liberal majority in 
the early hours of the morning, an important meeting 
was held at the Albert Hall. About 11,000 people 
attended, and the Duke of Abercorn, who presided, 
the Bishop of Derry — now the Primate — and other 
Irishmen upheld the cause of the Union with the great- 
est earnestness. Two days later a memorable recep- 
tion was given to the delegates at Hatfield. It was 
favoured by lovely summer-like weather, and the 
beauty of the place, the hospitality dispensed, and the 
fine oratory were worthy of the occasion. Stirring 
speeches were made from the steps in the quadrangle 
by the great Unionist leaders — Lord Salisbury, the 
Duke of Devonshire, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, 
and Mr. Goschen. Sir Thomas Butler spoke on behalf 
of the Irish Unionist Alliance. From those venerable 
walls, where history has been made ever since the days 
of Queen Elizabeth, Irish Unionists carried away the 
solemn promise that England never would abandon 
them. The speeches were received with the utmost 
enthusiasm, and the meeting left an impression which 
no one who attended it could ever forget. Most of 
the distinguished men who were present on that occa- 
sion have passed away from the scene, but the record 
of all they did to maintain the Union remains as an 
example and a stimulus to those who may have to 
fight the battle over again. The third reading of the 
Bill was carried by a majority of 34, including the Irish 
vote, so that England, Scotland, and Wales pronounced 
against it, and when the Bill went to the Lords in 
September they threw it out. 

While the debates were going on in the House of 
Commons in the spring, at the very moment the Irish 
delegates came over, the Unionist cause suffered a 



PRESIDENT OF THE CHELTONIAN SOCIETY 289 

severe loss by the death of Lord Derby. To Lecky it 
also meant the loss of an old, true and faithful friend. 
'I never knew anyone/ he wrote to Lady Derby, 'who 
distinguished so clearly between the specious and the 
true, who was so little swayed by the passions and illu- 
sions of the hour, and who aimed more steadily at 
promoting the real interests of men.' ' You judged 
his character rightly/ answered Lady Derby; 'few 
had better opportunities than yourself of doing so. 
It was only those in whom he found a sympathetic 
nature that could appreciate him; even they could 
not know the depth of his moral qualities.' In the 
Memoir which Lady Derby asked him to write at a 
later period he was glad to pay a public tribute to his 
memory. 

Lecky had been elected president of the Cheltonian 
Society for the year 1893, and he had to preside over 
the annual dinner which took place on July 5. In 
his speech proposing Cheltenham College he drew a 
comparison between the college of his time and that 
of to-day, with all its new developments, the chief 
of which seemed to him to be the tie of sympathy 
that continued to exist between former boys and their 
school. He passed in review many men who had 
been educated there and who had in various ways, 
as soldiers or civilians, gained distinction in after-life. 
Some years later — in 1897 — Lord James of Here- 
ford, chairman of the Council of Cheltenham College, 
asked Lecky to become a life member of the govern- 
ing body, which he accepted. 

After the usual crowded season he spent his holi- 
day chiefly in his brother-in-law's old country house 
in Holland. He always took some solid books with 
him to read in the quiet, undisturbed life he led there, 
and this time one of them was the first volume of a 
20 



290 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

history of the United States, which the author, Mr. 
James Ford Rhodes, had sent him. 

' You will, I am sure, understand,' he wrote to Mr. 
Rhodes (Vosbergen, September 5, 1893), 'how diffi- 
cult it is for anyone who has serious literary work of 
his own on hand, and who at the same time lives amid 
the whirl of London life, to read with proper care a 
long history on a subject unconnected with his own 
pursuits. I have been, however, for the last few weeks 
staying in a very out-of-the-way country house in a 
remote part of Guelderland, and your History has 
been one of my chief companions. I cannot refrain 
from writing a few lines to say how much pleasure I 
have derived from it and how much it has taught me. 
Very few books, indeed, have helped me so much to 
understand American politics, and the desire you show 
to do justice to all sides and to tell the exact truth in 
all controversies is very manifest on every page. It 
is a rare quality — especially in books dealing with a 
period of history that is so recent and so steeped in 
party passion. . . . Few things in writing history, I 
think, should be more cultivated than the power of 
throwing ourselves alternately by an effort of the imag- 
ination into each side of a controversy, and thus 
presenting the rival arguments and facts as they ap- 
peared to the best men in the opposing ranks. I 
hope very much that you may be able to complete 
your programme. An impartial history of the Civil 
War, and of the consequences that followed it, would 
be a most valuable contribution to political as well as 
to historical literature.' 

He wrote in the summer of 1893 an article for the 
Forum on Leroy-Beaulieu's 'Israel Among the Na- 
tions,' 1 and a short protest in the New Review against 
the abuses of advertising. Survivals of the old national 

1 Published in the Historical and Political Essays. 



HOLLAND 291 

life in a country always interested him particularly, 
and in Holland he had exceptional opportunities of 
seeing these. After visiting one of the out-of-the- 
way parts of the country he wrote to his step- 
mother : 

Vosbergen: August 15, 1893. — ' . . . We spent a 

very pleasant time with the G s from Monday to 

Friday. There are two or three pleasant families in 
the neighbourhood whom we know, and we took some 
long and interesting drives along the banks of the 
Zuyderzee, a long, high dyke fringing miles upon miles 
of vast, intensely green meadows intersected with 
long canals — speckled with great groups of very 
beautiful cattle, with herons and great flights of sea 
birds. We went to two curious and old-world villages 
which in the Middle Ages formed a considerable town, 
where a very beautiful distinctive costume is univer- 
sally worn; and the people intermarrying mainly among 
themselves have quite a distinct type — a singularly 
beautiful one, with thin, delicate lips and a curious 
air of refinement. They are fishermen — very pros- 
perous — and their houses, with their china and silver 
ornaments and prints of the House of Orange and 
great Bibles with silver clasps, and perfectly preter- 
natural neatness, are very interesting to see. They 
seem well educated, are extremely religious in a Puri- 
tanical way — some, I am told, considering the use 
of a looking-glass wrong — and have three distinct 
Churches representing different inflections of Cal- 
vinism.' 

In the autumn he went with his wife to an island, 
Schiermonnikoog, 1 off the north coast of Holland, and 
with nothing between it and the North Pole. There 



1 ' Eye of the Grey Monk.' There was a description of this 
visit in Longman's Magazine. 



292 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

he enjoyed the magnificent sea air, the beautiful sands, 
with innumerable sea birds, and the original character 
of the place, which was quite out of the beat of tourists. 
They afterwards visited some Belgian towns, and went 
home by Paris, as usual. 

The death of his doctor and friend, Sir Andrew 
Clark, in November 1893 was an irreparable loss to 
Lecky. He was a most able, kind and disinterested 
physician, possessed of very remarkable working 
power, which he used for the benefit of his fellow- 
creatures. He had a peculiarly sympathetic insight 
into the temperament of the brainworker, with its 
high-strung nerves and delicate organisation, and he 
was the doctor of many eminent men. He was very 
devoted to his patients, who placed the greatest con- 
fidence in him, and Lecky felt, with many others, 
that his loss could not be replaced. 

On his return to London that autumn he was asked 
by the Prince of Wales — now King Edward — to 
inaugurate a series of lectures at the Imperial Insti- 
tute by giving the opening address. Though he was 
always anxious to extricate himself from what .he 
called the entanglements of side-tasks, and to concen- 
trate himself on his own work, he could not refuse a 
repeated request. He selected for his theme the 
Value and Growth of the Empire. The Prince pre- 
sided, and, in opening and closing the proceedings, 
said some very gracious and appreciative words. The 
lecture proved to be exactly suited to the occasion. 
It not only met with warm approval from his audi- 
ence in England, it also struck a sympathetic chord 
among his friends in the Colonies. 'Old as I am,' 
wrote Judge Gowan from Canada, ' in reading it there 
was stirred within me all the enthusiasm of younger 
days. . . . The address will do much good and is very 



FRENCH INSTITUTE 293 

grateful to the feelings of loyal men in Canada.' 1 It 
was translated into German by Dr. I. Imelmann, 
and appeared in the Preussische Jahrbilcher. 2 

Lecky's views about the future did not escape a 
tinge of the pessimism which coloured those of many 
thinking men who had passed middle life. 

1 It is curious,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, November 16, 
1893, 'how many fellow-pessimists you have just now. 
Grant Duff, who was an old and steady Liberal, told 
me not long ago that he was delighted to be sixty-five, 
as he thought the world was going for some time to 
come to be a very disagreeable place, and Mundella 
(from whom I should have hardly expected such a 
sentiment) said to me, a propos of these labour ques- 
tions, much the same. I suppose the experiment of 
Socialism in some form will be tried, and it is highly 
probable that before it is accomplished a great portion 
of the English population, having driven away their 
trade, will find living here impossible.' 

Mr. Henry Reeve also used to say that he was not 
sorry to be near the close of his life, as the order of 
things he cared for was passing away. In Lecky's 
Commonplace Books there is often a sentence at the 
end of the year which sums up a dominant idea. On 
December 31, 1893, he wrote, 'The world seems to 
me to have grown very old and very sad.' 

Before the end of the year he first learnt through 
Comte de Franqueville, an old and valued friend, that 
he had been elected Correspondent of the French 
Institute in the Academie des Sciences morales et 
politiques, an honour which he much appreciated. 
'Nous sommes heureux de penser,' wrote M. Georges 



1 It has been included in the Historical and Political Essays. 
* Band Ixxv. Heft 2. 



294 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLB LECKY 

Picot, 'que ce vote cree entre nous des liens et 
que nous compterons sur nos listes le premier his- 
torien de l'Angleterre.' Lecky had many friends 
among eminent Frenchmen, and even some French 
connexions, 1 and an almost yearly stay in Paris kept 
him in touch with French life and French thought. 
Though many attempts had been made to translate 
his books into French, the translators apparently 
never could come to terms with the French publishers. 
His books, however, had many readers in France, and 
there was an affinity between his own and the French 
mind which was recognised by some eminent French 
writers. 'Je ne connais pas d'ecrivain Anglais/ M. 
Albert Reville once wrote to him, 'qu'un Francais 
puisse lire avec plus d'aisance et plus de satisfaction 
litteraire.' He thought Lecky had kept the best tra- 
ditions of style of the eighteenth century, combining 
with it the resources which the erudition of the nine- 
teenth alone could give him; and reading him was 
therefore an eesthetic as well as an intellectual enjoy- 
ment. 

In the winter he wrote, at the request of Lady Derby, 
the Memoir of Lord Derby, which has already been 
alluded to. It was to serve as introduction to his 
' Speeches,' which she wished to publish. It is not 
always easy for a candid biographer to please the rela- 
tions, but Lady Derby was far too large-minded to 



1 His wife's uncle by mar- him and M. de St. Albin with 

riage, M. Paul Grand, and his the publication of his Memoirs. 

daughter lived in Paris, and These were, however, not 

always received Mr. and Mrs. published till after the death 

Lecky very hospitably. M. of both. Introduction to the 

Grand was the godson of Memoirs of Barras. 
Barras, who had entrusted 



LORD ROSEBERY 295 

wish for anything but a true picture, and she knew it 
could not be anything but a sympathetic one. ' Lady 
Derby/ wrote Mr. Reeve, 'is delighted, as she well 
may be, with your admirable sketch — most felici- 
tous, she calls it'; and she wrote herself to Lecky, 'I 
am greatly pleased. The sketch is exactly the sort 
of Memoir I wished for; and you are quite right to 
have been perfectly sincere;' and when it appeared 
she wrote: ' Let me thank you again for your Memoir, 1 
which is quite perfect. . . . The Due d'Aumale has just 
been here and is very happy you should have written 
the Memoir.' 

The Due d'Aumale was a member of 'The Club,' 2 
and when in London he always made it a point to 
attend it. The most able and brilliant of the sons 
of Louis Philippe, he entertained his fellow-members 
on those occasions with many good stories of past 
times. As author of the 'Histoire des Princes de 
Conde,' he was anxious that they should all have a 
copy of this work from him on their bookshelves. 
His munificent gift of Chantilly to the French Insti- 
tute, which has saved the most priceless collection 
from dispersion, has earned him the gratitude of all 
the intellectual world. 

In the spring of 1894 Mr. Gladstone resigned and 
Lord Rosebery succeeded him, and great expectations 
were entertained about a reconstruction of the Liberal 
party. 

' I think from a Colonial point of view the change in 
Ministry is much to be rejoiced at,' Lecky wrote to 
Judge Gowan, March 6, 1894, 'as the Imperial idea is 
certainly the strongest with Lord Rosebery. The 



1 It has been included in the Historical and Political Essays. 

2 See ante, p. 120. 



296 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

general belief is that he cannot hold his present team 
long together and that an election will take place in 
the early summer; but I think moderate men look 
kindly on him, and hope that after a period of opposi- 
tion he may be able to bury Home Rule and reconstruct 
the Liberal party on a more respectable basis. . . . 
We shall probably within the next year or so have 
some scheme carried out for reforming the Constitu- 
tion of the House of Lords. If it can provide us with 
the inestimable blessing of a strong Upper Chamber, 
I at least will rejoice.' 

Meanwhile Lecky was working at his 'Democracy 
and Liberty.' In July he wrote to Mr. Booth: 'I get 
very much knocked up with London heat, which has 
been very intense. I shall have not quite finished 
seven out of ten or eleven chapters of which I mean 
my new book to consist.' 

He and his wife went that summer to the Tyrol, 
and made a pleasant stay at Madonna di Campiglio, a 
lovely spot, but owing to its altitude, more than 5000 
feet above the sea, with a somewhat rough climate. 
He wrote to his stepmother: 

'The place is extremely beautiful, with a delightful 
mixture of Italian colouring and Alpine air, with large 
fir woods and fine distant glaciers, and the strangely 
jagged and pinnacled forms of the Dolomites with 
their streaks of porphyry, and, I think, perhaps a 
greater variety of walks than any mountain place I 
know. We mean to stay here all August, but not, I 
think, longer. The hotel is very crowded, but we 
have now got comfortable rooms. Among the few 
people we know are Sir Charles Halle and his very 
charming Swedish wife, who plays the violin beauti- 
fully, and whom I dare say you know under her pro- 
fessional name of Norman Neruda.' 

During their stay Sir Charles and Lady Halle gave 



MADONNA DI CAMPIGLIO 297 

an admirable concert for the poor of Campiglio, and 
there was the usual banquet on the Emperor of Aus- 
tria's birthday. His Majesty's health was proposed, 
and representatives of various nationalities — a Hun- 
garian General, an Italian Prince, a German Minister, 
and Lecky — paid a tribute on behalf of their country- 
men to the sovereign whose sagacious influence car- 
ried so much weight in the councils of Europe. 

'One sees a good many interesting people here of 
different nationalities,' he wrote, 'and I am rather 
struck with the uniform pessimism of the more intel- 
ligent Italians I meet. Taxation in Italy seems to 
have very nearly reached the point of bankruptcy, and 
the level of public men to have been vastly lowered 
since the reduction of the suffrage.' 1 

Mr. and Mrs. Lecky went afterwards to the Mendel- 
pass, above Botzen, and to the Italian lakes. They 
spent a week or two at Cadenabbia, 'and of that 
time three or four days were as beautiful as could 
well be — the mountains with that dreamy mist of 
sunshine over them which is so eminently character- 
istic of the Lake of Como.' 2 During their stay the 
first English marriage that took place in the English 
church was celebrated by the Bishop of Chichester, 
Dr. R. Durnford, who was then ninety -three, and whom 
Lecky was much interested to meet. 'The neigh- 
bouring villas were illuminated: the pair went away in 
a private boat, the lady steering (as might be ex- 
pected).' 3 

On his return to London in October, he wrote to 
Mr. Lea: 



1 To Judge Gowan, August 2 From a letter to his step- 

12, 1894. mother, Lugano, September 25. 

3 Ibid. 



298 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

'I have been reading with great pleasure the very- 
striking paper on the " Increase of Crime " which you 
were so kind as to send me, and which I found on my 
arrival a few days since from the Continent. I had 
just before been reading in a French paper some very 
startling statistics about the increase of crime, and 
especially of juvenile crime, in France. This latter 
increase I find generally ascribed to the present not 
merely secular, but positively antitheistic system of 
education. It seems certain that our experience in 
•England is different from that of France, and I am 
afraid from yours. Sir J. Lubbock very recently 
collected some statistics on the subject, and I do not 
think there is any doubt whatever that crime in Eng- 
land has largely decreased within the last few years, and 
that our improved methods of treating juvenile crime 
(all of which I imagine exist among you) have proved 
eminently successful. The diminution of drunken- 
ness may not be so clearly established, but I think it 
is real, even though the aggregate amount of spirits 
consumed may have slightly increased. This may, 
and probably does, merely mean that with increased 
wages moderate drinkers multiply. I should fancy, 
as you hint in one of your notes, that the children' of 
foreign parents must contribute very largely to your 
crime, as they will probably have lost the restraining 
moral influences of the creed in which their parents 
were brought up, and have not yet had time to experi- 
ence the full moulding moral influences of American 
life. It is a very curious and important subject of 
inquiry, for the increase or diminution of serious 
crime is one of the best tests (though certainly not the 
only one) of a nation being in a healthy or unhealthy 
condition. I am very glad that you are able to keep 
so fully abreast of these modern questions at a time 
when you are doing so much to elucidate mediaeval 
history. I have been for the last two years occupied 
with subjects equally modern, but I do not expect to 



DEATH OF MB. FROUDE 299 

have finished what I am writing for about eighteen 
months. I was much interested in what you wrote 
me in your last letter about Socialism in America. 
In Europe it is tending strongly to form separate 
parliamentary groups, and is likely in this way to 
be much more dangerous than when it was merely a 
form of revolution. It is startling to observe how 
rapidly it has grown of late years in the German 
Parliament, and how powerful it already is in the great 
municipal bodies both of London and Paris. A great 
deal that is very curious on the subject was published 
a year ago by M. Guyot in his book on " The Tyranny 
of Socialism."' 

Mr. Froude was now living at Oxford, having given 
up London when he was appointed Regius Professor 
of History, and he and Lecky only met on rare occa- 
sions. Once, when on a visit to their friend, Mr. 
George Brodrick, Warden of Merton College, Mr. and 
Mrs. Lecky went to see Mr. Froude and received the 
usual cordial welcome, but before long a fatal illness 
struck him down. ' Froude is, I believe, dying/ wrote 
Lecky to Mr. Booth, October 16, 1894, ' a great man 
vanishing from living literature. It makes me feel 
very old to find how rapidly I am coming to stand in 
the oldest generation of writers. If I have a quiet 
life in my library for the next year or so, I hope to 
get through the writing (not printing) of my present 
book, but so many things may happen to prevent it.' 

A few days afterwards (on October 20) Mr. Froude 
died, and Lecky wrote the same day to Miss Froude 
expressing his most earnest sympathy on her father's 
death. 'Few men, indeed,' he wrote, 'have won more 
affection, or lived down more animosity, or borne 
themselves (as I have had much reason to know) amid 
grave differences of opinion with such a complete 
absence of personal bitterness. It has been a full and 



300 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

brilliant life, brilliant as ever to the end — and I hope 
that Oxford has thrown a peaceful and happy evening 
light upon its close.' 

Lecky was asked that autumn to write a few pages of 
reminiscences for Mr. Stuart Reid's 'Life of Lord 
Russell.' Such tributes to the memories of public 
men whom he had known always derived their value 
from the sympathetic insight as well as great sincerity 
which they showed. 'I shall always be grateful to 
him,' wrote Mr. Rollo Russell after Lecky's death, 
'for his words about my father, for he was one of the 
few who understood his character.' 

In December, while on a visit to Sir Richard Jebb at 
Cambridge, he wrote to Judge Gowan: 

' I avail myself of a short visit I am making to Cam- 
bridge (for the purpose chiefly of seeing a Greek play, 
which is being admirably acted by the young men) to 
thank you for your kind letter and very interesting 
paper. . . . Ireland is just now profoundly quiet, 
the only sounds being the quarrels of the Home Rulers 
among themselves. The Parnellites (nine votes) 
have declared openly against the Government and are 
abusing Morley as much as they once abused Balfour. 
I think if the next election returns a decided Union- 
ist majority (which seems probable) we shall hear 
little more of Home Rule. The indifference of the 
leading Ministers to it is hardly concealed. ... A 
good many of us over here are a good deal irritated at 
the attempts you are making in Canada to overthrow 
the Copyright Law, 1 enabling your printers to reprint 



1 Canada was under the duty at the Canadian Custom 

British Copyright Act, and House on all American re- 

the Canadian Government had prints coming into the coun- 

undertaken to collect for the try, but this was evidently 

benefit of British authors a evaded. 



CANADA AND COPYRIGHT 301 

our works without the consent or control of the author, 
and often probably (as constantly happened in Amer- 
ica) keeping them before the public in their first crude 
and imperfect form long after new discoveries or fresh 
materials had led to their revision. We are old- 
fashioned enough to think that literary property (which 
perhaps approaches creation more than any other) is 
real property, and that an English author has a clear 
right to control the sale of his own works in the Queen's 
dominions. The greatest step which has been taken 
in this generation for the benefit of English authors 
and the establishment of the principle of literary 
property was the American Copyright Act, and your 
proceedings are likely gravely to endanger it. More- 
over, if you adopt the piratical course, other Colonies 
will doubtless follow your example. The royalty 
supposed to be collected at the Canadian Custom 
House for the benefit of English authors has been a 
pure farce. Sir C. Lyell once told me he had received 
a notice from the Treasury that 2s. 6d. was waiting 
for him, having been sent from Canada, but as it was 
a 2s. cab fare to get it, he did not claim it. As far as I 
can make out, few authors have received from this 
source as much as I have, i.e. £1 9s. lOd. in twenty- 
six years! So, on the whole, I think English authors 
have some grievances against Canada, however much 
they may admire some Canadian legislators.' 

Canada, in wishing to get rid of the British Copy- 
right Law, had passed an Act of its own in 1889, for 
which it repeatedly tried to obtain the sanction of 
the British Government. In 1894, when the Canadian 
Premier, Sir John Thompson, visited England he 
pressed the matter, and there was some danger of the 
Government giving in. An important deputation, 
including Lecky, waited on the Colonial Secretary, 
Lord Ripon, on November 26, and forcibly repre- 
sented to him the injury the Bill would inflict on the 



302 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

whole copyright question. After that the matter 
hung fire, but in the following spring of 1895 the danger 
seemed once more imminent, and strong protests were 
made by authors and publishers in the Contemporary 
Review of April. 'It is surely not too much/ wrote 
Lecky in his own incisive way, 'to ask the Queen's 
Ministers in England to protect the property of the 
Queen's subjects from legalised plunder in any part 
of her dominions. This is the only favour that Eng- 
lish literature asks or expects from their hands.' 



CHAPTER XII 



1894-1896. 



LL.D. degree at Glasgow — General Election — Mr. Rhodes' 
' History ' — Mr. Bayard — Offer of Dublin University 
Seat — Centenary of the French Institute — Contested 
Election — The Religious Cry — Answer to Correspondents 
— Clonakilty contra mundum — Result of the Election — 
Congratulations — Maiden Speech — Land Bill — Publica- 
tion of ' Democracy and Liberty ' — Appreciative Letters — 
Critics — Essay on Gibbon — Essay on Swift — Judge 
O'Connor Morris — Debates on the Land Bill. 

During the winter of 1894-1895 Lecky worked exclu- 
sively at his ' Democracy and Liberty/ which was now 
approaching its completion. Several honours were 
bestowed upon him at this time. He was elected by 
the Royal Academy to the office of Honorary Secretary 
for Foreign Correspondence in succession to the late 
Sir Henry Layard, and this made a very pleasant 
connexion between him and that distinguished body, 
among whom he had many friends. Lord Kelvin 
wrote that Glasgow University wished 'to have the 
honour' of conferring the degree of LL.D. upon him 
and that the ceremony would take place on April 16. 
The year 1895 was an eventful one in Lecky's life. 
Early in the spring he lost his brother-in-law, at whose 
country house he had been in the habit of staying some 
time almost every summer. Baron W. van Dedem 
had been Minister for the Colonies in a Liberal Dutch 
Cabinet, and after his party went out of office in 1894 he 

303 



304 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

started on a journey to India, wishing to compare its ad- 
ministration with that of the Dutch East Indies, in 
which he was particularly interested. The transition of 
temperature from Calcutta to Darjeeling brought on a 
fever, which ended fatally on his return to Calcutta, 
where he intended taking the steamer for Java. The 
news reached his relations by telegram on April 4, 
and Lecky greatly felt the loss of a friendship of nearly 
twenty-five years. Soon after this sad event Lecky 
went to Scotland to receive the degree. He took the 
opportunity to make a short tour among the Scottish 
Lakes to get some bracing, and wrote from Inversnaid 
to his wife, who had gone to The Hague: 

April 13, 1895. — 'I can feel how moving, even 
though in some sense pleasant, it must be to have so 
many signs of your brother's hold upon the affections 
of those about him. He had indeed a transparent 
single-mindedness and high-mindedness of character 
that it was impossible to mistake, and few men can 
have devoted themselves more absolutely and exclu- 
sively to public and unselfish interests. Perhaps in 
a small country this is more fully appreciated, because 
it is more observed than in a great one.' 

He had two lovely days on Loch Lomond, 'quite 
Italian, and the lake looking beautiful'; and he then 
went to Glasgow, where he stayed with Lord and Lady 
Kelvin, whose kindness he much praised. Principal 
Caird was ill, so there was no address, and Lord Kelvin 
performed the ceremony. 

It took place in the large fine hall built by Lord 
Bute. The students were very civil, and the merits 
of the new graduates were 'related in the English 
tongue.' Among his colleagues were Mr. Frazer of the 
Golden Bough, and an interesting old Scottish natu- 
ralist of more than eighty, named Robertson, whose life 



POLITICAL CONDITIONS 305 

has been written by Mr. Stebbing. 'There was after- 
wards a luncheon/ he wrote, 1 'where I was treated as 
guest of honour and had to reply for all the non-divin- 
ity LL.D.s, which I duly did.' 

In consequence of the retirement of Mr. Gladstone 
from politics the burning question of Home Rule fell 
into abeyance and a period of relative quiet followed 
on the excitement of previous years. 

From Loch Awe he wrote to Judge Gowan on April 
21, 1895: 

. . . ' Politics here are in a state of curious lassitude. 
The Irish question by a sort of tacit agreement has 
fallen into the background, and the conviction that 
the Government cannot through its weakness carry 
any really dangerous measure, and is half-hearted in 
all it does, has much diminished the animosity with 
which it was regarded in the days when Gladstone 
reigned. It is a curious and I suppose unprecedented 
thing that the three most important elected bodies in 
England are just now all of them almost equally bal- 
anced. A precarious majority of fourteen in the 
House of Commons — a majority of three in the 
London School Board — an exact tie among the elected 
members of the London County Council. On the 
whole, the present tendencies seem Conservative and 
Anti-Socialist. I think Gladstone has really given up 
politics. I met him a few weeks ago at a dining club 
to which we both belong. He is always very agreeable, 
interesting, and courteous, but very deaf and rather 
blind, and not now capable of talking to a whole 
table, though delightful to those who sit near him. 
He is at present very full of Bishop Butler and intend- 
ing, I believe, to edit his works. It is a wonderful 
old age, whatever one may think of his principles and 
politics.' 

1 To his wife. 
21 



306 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

After his return to London, Lecky wrote to Mr. 
Booth, May 30 : ' I have been working very hard all 
this year, and shall have to do so to the end, as I want 
if possible to publish my book (two volumes) in the 
spring, though it is possible I may have to delay it 
till October. I always find a long task a great solace 
amid the troubles of life, and a great settling and 
calming influence.' 

The general election in the summer of 1895, follow- 
ing on the defeat of the Liberal Government, brought 
in the Conservatives with a very large majority. It 
showed 'beyond all possibility of doubt/ as Lecky 
said in his ' Democracy and Liberty/ ' that on the Home 
Rule question the House of Lords represented the true 
sentiments of the democracy of the country.' 'I sus- 
pect the last election/ he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'will 
make many think Lord Beaconsfield right in his 
belief (which was shared by Bismarck and Louis Napo- 
leon) that the most uninstructed classes, if. you go 
deep enough, are essentially conservative.' 

In the course of the summer he went twice to Hol- 
land to be present at the weddings of his two sisters-in- 
law, 1 who had often travelled with him and his wife, 
and who used to pay them yearly visits in London. 
He stayed for some weeks in the old country house — 
everything the same and yet so different without the 
owner, who was the soul of it. He brought with him 
the typewritten copy of his book to revise, and an- 
other volume of Mr. Rhodes' 'History/ the earlier 
volumes of which he had read at Vosbergen some years 
before. 

'I have been reading it with the greatest interest,' 
he wrote to Mr. Rhodes, August 25, 1895, 'and have 

1 Now Mme. de Beaufort and Baronne de Braun. 



MR. RHODES' ' HISTORY' 307 

learnt much from it. I do not think I ever read a 
history which is more transparently fair and which 
deals with subjects that naturally rouse strong party 
feeling in a spirit of more absolute impartiality. Both 
in the question between North and South and in the 
question between America and England you have 
shown this spirit in an extraordinary degree, and I 
think your book will do a great deal to appease ani- 
mosities and to teach different sides to understand and 
appreciate each other. I am old enough to remember 
vividly your great war, and was then much with an 
American friend — a very clever lawyer named George 
Bemis, whom I came to know very well at Rome. I 
had been writing just before receiving your book my 
impressions of English opinions on the war (for a 
book which I hope to publish next spring) and I do not 
think you will find that they differ at all materially 
from yours. The only element you seem to me to 
have omitted is the Italian question, which in the 
few years before your war had accustomed English- 
men to assert, in the most extreme form, the doctrine 
that every large body of men have a right to form 
their government as they please. I was myself a 
decided Northerner, but the 'right of revolution' was 
always rather a stumbling-block. I much admire 
the industry with which you have grappled with the 
newspaper material, which is the terror, almost the 
nightmare, of the nineteenth-century historians.' 

'It is the best account,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'I 
have ever read of the events that led to the American 
Civil War. American books are much less read in 
England than they should be. They always interest 
me greatly, dealing as they do with the more advanced 
stages of democracy to which we are coming.' 

A very friendly intercourse with each successive 
American representative contributed to keep up Lecky's 
interest in American affairs. 'I have become great 



308 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

friends/ he wrote to Mr. Lea, ' with Mr. Bayard, whom 
we all like greatly. He is not of your party, but I do 
not think anyone can come in contact with him with- 
out feeling for him a very warm friendship. Certainly 
America has been most fortunate in her last three 
representatives — men very unlike each other but all 
most respected and admired over here.' 

Mr. Bayard's warm feelings of regard for Lecky are 
shown in the following letter, written on receiving 
Lecky's portrait, which he had expressed a wish to 
possess : 

(To Mrs. Lecky.) ' You have given me a great and 
abiding pleasure in this picture of your husband. My 
respect and admiration, gathered from his writings, 
had long ago made me look forward eagerly and with 
especial interest to making the personal acquaintance 
of the man himself — ■ and as you know, one is apt to 
conceive a portrait in imagination which is not always 
carried out when the real personality comes in view — 
but Mr. Lecky proved all that my fancy painted him 
and something even finer and better. The picture is 
delightful — an admirable likeness of a singularly 
refined and intellectual head and face.' 

In the course of the month of October, when the 
seat for Dublin University became vacant by the 
elevation of Mr. Plunket to the peerage, Lecky received 
an urgent requisition from an influential body of elect- 
ors to stand for the seat. It was represented to him 
that his doing so would be of great service to his Uni- 
versity, and also to the cause of University representa- 
tion; and though his early enthusiasm for Parliament 
was now extinguished, and he felt somewhat too old 
to begin a new career, he thought that on the grounds 
adduced it was his duty to waive all personal objections 
and accede to the request. He was given to under- 



DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ELECTION 309 

stand at first that he would be returned unopposed, 
and indeed a contest seemed most improbable. In 
him the electors had a candidate who not only had 
made a great reputation by his works, but who had 
rendered signal services to Ireland and to the cause 
of the Union. It might even be said that there was 
no one out of Parliament who had fought the battle 
of the Union more strenuously and more disinterest- 
edly, or whose words carried greater weight. The 
electors as a body would have done themselves and 
the University credit by unanimously electing such 
a candidate. But this point of view did not appeal 
to some of the legal profession, who had held the Uni- 
versity seat almost uninterruptedly since the Union. 
They were not going to give it up without a struggle, 
and they supported a candidate of their own — Mr. 
Wright, a popular member of the Munster Bar. Lecky's 
feelings at the time are best described in his own words : 

(To Mr. Booth.) Athenceum Club: October 18, 1895. 
— ' So many electors have so very urgently and so 
very kindly asked me to stand, and have so much 
insisted that it would be for the advantage of the 
University that I should do so, that I did not think 
it right to refuse, especially as I have finished the 
writing, though alas! not begun the printing of my 
new book. Plunket, Fitzgibbon, and various others 
have been very kind about it. As you know, I have 
not the smallest desire for the House of Commons, 
and am lamentably deficient in the nerve that is re- 
quired for a public man, and I feel too old for a new 
career; but a University seat is much less trying than 
any other, and I hope I may become a respectable 
quiet member (if returned) like Jebb and Sir George 
Stokes of Cambridge.' 

' No one can be more surprised at it [the Candida- 



310 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

ture] than myself,' he wrote to the Provost, Dr. Salmon, 
'for of late years nothing has been more contrary to 
my wishes, nothing more uncongenial to my tastes 
than to go into the House of Commons. It was rep- 
resented to me, however, so strongly, that there was a 
wish in T.C.D. that I should represent it, and that by 
standing I might render it some real service, that 
I thought it my duty to accept. If this feeling is as 
real and as widely spread as is represented to me, I 
think I have done rightly — though whether for my 
own happiness I have acted wisely, especially if this 
matter involves a long delay and an expensive contest, 
is quite another question. However, the die is cast 
and you will, I believe, see my election address on 
Monday or Tuesday. I am just going to Paris for the 
Institut Centenaire, where I am afraid I shall not 
meet you though we are colleagues.' 

Lecky's supporters could not but feel gratified that 
at this very juncture he should have been the one Irish- 
man who represented his University among the dis- 
tinguished men of all nations gathered together at 
the invitation of the French Institute to celebrate 
its centenary. 1 The ceremonies and fetes that were 
given on the occasion; the memorable speeches made 
in the great hall of the Sorbonne ; the admirable acting 
at a gala representation at the Theatre Francais; the 
fine recitations at M. Poincare's, Minister of Public 
Instruction, were worthy of the best French tradi- 
tions. Not the least impressive ceremony was the 
solemn service at St. Germain des Pres in memory of 
the deceased members of the Institute, among whom 
was Mr. Reeve, 2 who had died just before. The Due 
d'Aumale, too unwell to attend the celebration, re- 



1 A description of the visit zine, December 1895. 
appeared in Longman's Maga- 2 Lecky wrote a short me- 



THE CONTEST 311 

ceived the guests at Chantilly, where they were able 
to inspect the magnificent inheritance of the Insti- 
tute. 

Meanwhile Lecky's election address had been issued, 
and on his return to London he soon found himself in 
all the turmoil of a contest. As his opponent was also 
a Unionist there were no political issues; but Lecky 
had written books and he did not live in Ireland, and 
these two facts — especially the former — were util- 
ised against him by his opponents. In drawing their 
own deductions from certain passages in his writings 
they sought to prejudice the clerical electors. For 
weeks columns of the Irish papers were filled with 
letters discussing Lecky's religious convictions — 
some of the writers not even having read his books; 
indeed, as 'a country parson' wrote, the electioneer- 
ing device would ' completely fail with those who were 
most familiar with Mr. Lecky's writings.' His posi- 
tion was very clear. Like Macaulay at Leeds, he was 
ready to say 'I am a Christian'; but like him also he 
protested against the use of inquisitorial methods and 
the introduction of the most sacred subjects into a 
political election. Several electors wrote to him ask- 
ing what his religious belief was, and he always an- 
swered that while he was happy to give any information 
about his politics he must absolutely decline to answer 
questions of this sort. 

'For a long time past,' he wrote to one of these 
correspondents, 'I believe all self-respecting candi- 
dates for Parliament in England have taken this 
course, and I should far rather lose the election than 



moir of Mr. Reeve for the published in the Historical 
January number, 1896, of the and Political Essays. 
Edinburgh Review, since re- 



312 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

recede from it. If you think a religious test should 
be exacted from members for this University (a purely 
undenominational body) you had much better vote 
for my opponent, for I, at least, will never take it. 
If you care to investigate my opinions on these sub- 
jects, my books have long been before the public, and 
are, I presume, known to several of the gentlemen at 
whose kind request I am coming forward.' 

The Primate (Dr. Robert Gregg) and most of the 
higher clergy and important men in other professions 
were his supporters, and the Press were almost all on 
his side, foremost among them the Times and the 
Dublin Daily Express, which fought his cause warmly. 
Lord Morris happily characterised the contest as 
'Clonakilty 1 contra mundum.' His committees in 
Dublin and in London worked for him with the great- 
est zeal and devotion. All his friends showed an 
enthusiasm and sympathy which were most gratify- 
ing, and many whom he did not know took up his 
cause warmly. Among those who fought his battle 
in the Irish newspapers was a clever and high-minded 
woman, 2 too early taken from her family and friends. 
Under the signature 'Pro Universitate ' she wrote a 
series of letters refuting the attacks upon Lecky, with 
excerpts from his own books, which no one knew better 
than herself, though at that time she did not know 
the author. The contest was one of the bitterest 
there had been in Dublin for a long time, and carried 
with it a great deal that was unpleasant to him; but 
there was no bitterness on his side, and he went through 
it all with the calm of a philosopher. On the day of 



1 The centre of the Minister K.C., who was on Lecky's corn- 
circuit, mittee. 

2 The wife of Mr. Samuels, 



NOMINATION SPEECHES 313 

the nomination he was proposed by Dr. Gwynn, 
Regius Professor of Divinity, and seconded by the 
late Sir John Banks, Regius Professor of Medicine, in 
terms of the greatest appreciation. Dr. Gwynn in his 
speech laid stress on the special significance of this 
election and on the importance of having a member, 
such as Mr. Lecky, who held an independent position 
and who had nothing to gain from any party. . . . 
For what was the meaning of University representa- 
tion? Was it not that University members 'should 
introduce a higher level into the arena of party poli- 
tics?' 

Lecky explained his reasons for coming forward as a 
candidate and dealt with the attacks that were made 
upon him ; but his speech from the hustings was mainly 
devoted to the great questions of policy that were 
before the country, and his supporters expressed their 
gratification at his dignified and statesmanlike atti- 
tiude. His speech was drowned, like all the others, 
amidst the boisterousness of the College boys, who, 
as he testified, 'were very good-natured and shouted 
and threw about College caps very impartially during 
the two and a half hours the proceedings continued.' 
He was curiously indifferent to the result as far as 
he was himself concerned; though he felt convinced 
that no greater damage could be done to the Univer- 
sity than imposing a religious test, and that few things 
would do so much to lower its position before the edu- 
cated opinion of Europe as the belief that it was 
possible for anyone, by such means, to become its rep- 
resentative. The polling went on for five days, and 
from the first it was apparent that he would win. 

'It is a very curious experience,' he wrote to Mr. 
Booth, Dublin, December 4, 1895, ' being in the midst 
of a fiercely contested election, especially when the 



314 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

Odium Theologicum plays as great a part as here. 
Whole columns of the Irish Times are usually occupied 
with letters about my religious belief, some of these 
written by very curious persons. ... I hope next 
Monday to be back in London and again immersed in 
proof-sheets. We have had an unusually large poll, 
and my supporters hope that my majority may be 
only a little less than two to one.' 

He was finally returned with a majority of 746, 1 
though there was no doubt that votes were lost to 
him through the tactics used by his opponents; these 
produced a revulsion of feeling which he hoped would 
do some permanent good. The election excited an 
extraordinary amount of interest, not only in the three 
kingdoms but abroad. Congratulations came from 
far and wide, and even a newspaper from Paraguay 
recorded the result. 

'The House of Commons is to be congratulated,' 
wrote one of the great scholars of the time, ' as others 
have doubtless said, on your accession to it, and speak- 
ing in the capacity of a University member I may 
express the peculiar satisfaction which will certainly 
be felt by that much threatened contingent. The 
enrolment in it of the foremost English man of letters 
will be welcomed with all the greater warmth because 
he does not labour under the disadvantage of being 
a Professor — a thing which no Englishman ever 
really forgives. I believe that your return has prob- 
ably added several years to the life of University 
representation.' 

Lecky made many warm friends on the occasion. 
' When he first consented to stand for the University,' 
wrote one of them, ' his great name and writings were 



1 On a poll of 2768, one of the largest on record. 



IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 315 

sufficient to inspire us all with enthusiasm, but within 
the last few days, since he came amongst us, that 
enthusiasm has deepened into the far more human 
feeling of strong personal regard/ and after the elec- 
tion some of his opponents became his staunch sup- 
porters. As for Lecky's own feelings, there is no 
doubt that when all the unpleasantness of the contest 
was passed he was pleased and gratified to represent 
his University. To a man who had keenly followed 
politics all his life, Parliament — the centre of polit- 
ical life of a great Empire — could not but have a 
certain attraction. He was interested to come into 
closer contact with the practical side of politics, and 
he found in the House many people whom he liked, 
among others his old friend Sir George Trevelyan, who 
to his regret resigned the following year. In 1898 
another old friend of his, Mr. Arthur Elliot, 1 came in 
as member for Durham, and being on the same side 
of politics they frequently sat together. Lecky 
watched with much sympathy the careers of younger 
men. Though Parliament brought him a large in- 
crease of correspondence, he always maintained that 
his constituents gave him very little trouble. Still 
on the whole a literary life suited his tastes better. 
He felt too old and unambitious to do much in Parlia- 
ment. 'Literature does not lead to much that is 
very splendid/ he wrote at that time, 'certainly not 
in the way of money, but for myself I far prefer it 
to a political life.' He was conscious of a great deal 
of waste of time; he found the multitude of questions 
that had to be made up somewhat overwhelming, and 
the late hours very tiring. 



1 The Hon. Arthur Elliot had succeeded Mr. Reeve as editor 
of the Edinburgh Review. 



316 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Though he meant to be, at least the first year, the 
most unobtrusive of members, he was induced to speak 
very soon after the opening of the Session. It was on 
February 17, on the question of releasing those Irish 
prisoners who had been condemned under the Treason 
Felony Act and who had been in penal servitude for 
thirteen years. While expressing the strongest con- 
demnation of their crime — that of setting explosives 
— he pleaded for clemency on the ground that these 
prisoners had nearly served their time; that Ireland 
was now quiet, and that the Government was strong 
enough to show mercy without exciting the suspicion 
of being intimidated or overawed. Lecky spoke with- 
out preparation, and on that occasion took his position 
in Parliament. Contemporary evidence, from a source 
which cannot be suspected of bias, is the best one can 
have: 

' The reception accorded by the House of Commons 
to Mr. Lecky,' said a Liberal paper, the Westminster 
Gazette, the next day, 'has exploded the popular fal- 
lacy that the House is jealous of an outside reputation. 
. . . His appearance was greeted with loud and enthu- 
siastic cheers from every quarter of the House. . . . 
Mr. Lecky spoke without notes, in a somewhat thin, 
clear voice, which was distinctly heard in every corner 
of the House. The speech, which was admirably put 
together, was delivered with great force, and the im- 
pression produced was universally favourable.' 

From the moment Lecky entered Parliament he be- 
came a favourite subject for the caricaturist, espe- 
cially in the Westminster Gazette. Sir F. Carruthers 
Gould, one of the great masters of the art, has an un- 
disputed skill in portraiture, and though caricature 
necessarily means grotesqueness, he rarely, if ever, 
exceeded its due limitations. 



A NEW IEISH LAND BILL 317 

Lecky, in his 'Democracy and Liberty/ had ex- 
pressed his views about the increase of predatory legis- 
lation, and he soon had occasion to say in the House 
— speaking on the Benefices Bill x — that a member 
of Parliament could adopt no better rule than steadily 
to vote against all measures which implied confisca- 
tion without compensation. 

One of the chief measures announced for the session 
was another Irish Land Bill, which purported to amend 
the defects of previous ones. Though it contained 
some useful provisions, such as the extension of the 
Land Purchase Acts, it was very contentious in other 
ways. Before its introduction Irish landowners were 
full of apprehension, as the following letter from Lecky 
to Lord Dufferin shows: 

Athenaeum: March 9, 1896. — ' I return with many 
thanks your admirable paper, which I have read very 
carefully. If considerations of justice or even real 
considerations of expediency dominated in Irish 
politics it would be perfectly invincible, but Ireland, 
which is an exception to many rules, has, I fear, also 
become an exception to the old rule that honesty is 
the best policy. Whether the reign of triumphant 
dishonesty (seldom more marked than in the Union- 
ist Act of 1887) is now about to terminate it is impos- 
sible to say. Few things grow with a more portentous 
rapidity than dishonest precedents, which are gener- 
ally admitted as purely exceptional and certain to do 
no practical harm in their restricted sphere, and which 
soon become the starting-point and logical premise of 
more extensive measures. I have been going very 
fully into the Irish land question of late, having de- 
voted a good many pages to it in a new book which 



1 A Bill to amend the law respecting the exercise of Church 
patronage. 



318 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

is coming out at the end of this month. I do not 
think we shall have much legislation before Easter, 
as we are threatened with much obstruction on the 
Estimates, and as there is a large part of the rank and 
file behind the Government much disinclined to any- 
new departure. I only hope that the great opportu- 
nity of a commanding and homogeneous Unionist 
majority will not be lost.' 

'I am sorry to say,' he wrote to a friend, 'one of 
their [the Government's] measures is a new Land Bill 
which again raises the questions of improvement and 
fair rent, and will, I am afraid, do much to unsettle 
agrarian relations. Another reduction of rents would, 
I fear, ruin many, and it would check the flow of money 
to Irish land which, after a long period, had begun 
again after the last election. If we could only induce 
this House to leave us alone for a few years it would 
be the greatest boon Parliament could bestow on us'. 

One of Lecky's first official duties was to take part 
in the election of a Professor of Irish for Trinity Col- 
lege. He went to Ireland during the Easter vacation, 
and began by going to Donegal, wanting very much, 
as he wrote to the Provost, 'to get a week or so of 
good air in the West of Ireland, in some happy region 
where no speeches have to be made or listened to.' 
He wrote from there with his usual enthusiasm for 
the Atlantic air and scenery, and with that interest 
in animate nature which he shared with his friends 
Sir Mountstuart Grant-Duff and Sir John Lubbock. 1 
'The weather, so far, is lovely,' he wrote from Port- 
salon, 'and the colouring over the mountains, Lough 
Swilly and the broad Atlantic, quite ideally beautiful.' 
Carrigart struck him as curiously like the Eye of the 
Grey Monk (Schiermonnikoog) , 'with, of course, the 



Now Lord Avebury. 



'democracy and liberty' 319 

addition of mountains.' In both places small sea 
birds trotted about in flocks, and 'it is amusing here 
to see them regularly following the plough to pick 
up worms.' 

'Democracy and Liberty' had now come out, and 
on his return to London he wrote to Mr. Booth: 

' I hope my book may do some good, though it must 
necessarily offend large classes. ... It will probably 
be my last long book, and I often feel it a pity that I 
should have gone into a sphere for which I am very 
little suited instead of remaining where I could do 
something of real value. I have now, however, 
written a great deal, and probably expressed all my 
best ideas, and I must try to make the best of my 
new life for a few years. You will find a great deal 
very interesting on the better side of Socialism in a 
very interesting Italian book (translated into English) , 
Nitti's "Catholic Socialism." I have been spending a 
pleasant fortnight in Ireland, which I much wanted 
as I had got extremely run down — partly in Donegal, 
which is to my mind the most delicious air in the world, 
and where there are now some excellent hotels, and 
partly with the Provost in T.C.D., where I had to take 
part, as M.P., in the election of a Professor of Irish 
— choosing between three very competent scholars. 
As I do not know a word of the language or any of 
the candidates, you can appreciate my competence, 
but really, in the House of Commons one gets quite 
accustomed to that kind of thing, having to vote 
almost nightly on matters one does not understand. 
If you have never watched our proceedings you should 
come in some night when you are here. As a general 
rule, there is no difficulty about it. I get very tired 
with this life, its late hours, the crowd of questions, 
and the multitude of letters it entails.' 

The 'Democracy and Liberty' had in some respects 



320 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

been written under peculiar difficulties, treating as 
it does of a vast number of questions and of the laws 
and institutions of a great many countries. He found 
that his authorities on foreign countries were not al- 
ways trustworthy, and he had sometimes to make 
investigations on the spot. The book excited a great 
deal of interest, and it was on the whole well received. 
Men in various parts of the world, whose judgment 
he valued, wrote to express their concurrence with 
his views. They knew that these views were not the 
theories of a scholar who lived a secluded life in his 
library, but that they represented the experience of 
a man who had from early days closely followed poli- 
tics at home and abroad, and who had had much inter- 
course with some of the foremost statesmen of his time. 
He had studied the forces that govern the political 
changes in various countries, and his knowledge of the 
history of the past added strength to his arguments. 
He showed the evils and dangers of democracy, but 
also the counteracting influences. 

'Exegisti monumentum/ wrote the Australian his- 
torian, Mr. Rusden, ' I cannot but believe that you have 
given the world a text-book on the great and vital 
questions you have handled.' Lecky's defence of 
University representation — written before he had any 
idea of standing for one of them — received grateful 
recognition from those who were interested in its future, 
for, as the head of an Oxford College wrote to him, they 
looked upon him as the representative not of one Uni- 
versity only but of the whole University system. Lord 
Dufferin, who was recognised on all hands, even by 
Mr. Gladstone, 1 to be the best authority on the Irish 



1 Life of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, by Sir Alfred Lyall 
vol. i. p. 160. 



'democracy and liberty' 321 

land question, wrote after reading Lecky's pages on 
the subject: 'How grateful we ought all to be to you 
for showing up the infamy of our treatment, as well 
as predicting the consequences which will be sure to 
follow such injustice. I am happy to find how parallel 
to what you have written my paper runs.' 

The book met with a very favourable reception 
in America, as reviews and letters showed. 'If it 
betters our conditions in any degree,' wrote a corre- 
spondent from Columbia University, New York, 'you 
will certainly deserve the gratitude of every American, 
and in fact of every civilised man.' Mr. Bayard had 
read the book with deep interest, and said that 'Its 
high moral courage and independence, elevation of 
tone, judicial impartiality, scope of investigation, wide 
learning and philosophical statement ' commanded ' his 
admiration and respect' — and from 'the judicious' 
would, he felt sure, receive them. 'Emphatically you 
are right,' he wrote, 'in pointing out as the most 
malign and dangerous element in the United States 

— the growing Plutocracy.' 

As Lecky anticipated, there were many who did not 
agree with his views about the evils of democratic 
government. But he was always interested to hear 
what honest opponents had to say, and in spite of all 
differences they recognised in him a political thinker 
whose opinions were entitled to respect. The book 
appeared at an unfavourable moment, for the return 
of a large Conservative majority seemed to show that 
his apprehensions about the tendencies of democracy 
were unfounded, or at least exaggerated. His views, 
however, were not limited to any particular period 

— he took a broad survey of the political history of 
the country and of the general trend of affairs, and it 
very soon became apparent that amidst many shift- 

22 



322 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

ing elements the tendencies which he had described 
continued to dominate in English politics. 1 

'It is difficult to get people here to believe' — he 
wrote to Mr. Lea from the House of Commons, May 19, 
1896 — 'that there are dangers in Democracies when 
that of England has recently so emphatically con- 
demned log-rolling Socialism and class bribery and 
has established a homogeneous majority stronger 
than any since 1832. I still think, however, that in 
the long run a very wide suffrage will prove incom- 
patible with that complete authority in the State which 
(unlike your Congress) our House of Commons pos- 
sesses. The strength of our Government, however, 
just now is perfectly phenomenal, and the growing 
dissension between the English Nonconformist and 
the Irish Catholic Nationalist tends still further to 
disorganise the Opposition. Foreign troubles are 
what is chiefly to be feared, and in South Africa there 
is grave danger of a race division, which we all look 
on with great alarm. I am afraid in my present life 
I shall write no more books. A short paper on Gib- 
bon for an American publication has been, since my 
election, my sole work in that way. However, I do 



1 See Introduction to Be- type of Government to which 

mocracy and Liberty, cabinet we have been accustomed — 

edition, p. xix. 'I think,' he that it tended either to a des- 

wrote to Mr. Booth in 1899, potism resting on a plebiscite 

'people rather exaggerate the or, at least, to a considerable 

pessimism of my Democracy. I abridgment of the powers of a 

clearly recognised that in nu- democratic house. This is 

merous fields the world was ad- done in the U. S. A. by differ- 

vancing, though I do not believe ent provisions of the Con- 

the democratic theory would stitution. In England the 

in the long run be favour- manifest tendency is to the 

able to self-government and increasing monopoly of real 

especially to the Parliamentary power by the Cabinet.' 



SPEECH BEFORE EDUCATION LEAGUE 323 

not mean to spend all the rest of my life here. The 
work is physically very tiring, and I often feel that a 
good deal of it might be done equally well, with a 
little training, by a fairly intelligent poodle-dog! Of 
course there are times when it is very interesting and 
sometimes very difficult, and a few years of such work 
teaches much.' 

The essay on Gibbon mentioned in the letter was 
for an American publication, the 'Warner Classics.' 
Lecky was also asked at this time for a biographical 
introduction to a new edition of Swift's works, and it 
was suggested to him that his essay on Swift in the 
'Leaders of Public Opinion' might serve the purpose. 
With that object he recast and amplified it. He re- 
ceived a request to be President for the year of the 
Social and Political Education League, to which he 
agreed after some demur, on condition that — owing 
to a heavy press of work — he should not have to 
deliver an address. At the annual meeting, however, he 
made a short speech, which contained some philosophic 
reflections and truths that are very little heeded: 

'Renan has said that an undue proportion of the 
English intellect is devoted to politics; but how little 
of our political discussion looks beyond the interests 
of a party or an election, beyond the duration of a 
Ministry or a parliament; how little of it is concerned 
with those remote and indirect consequences of meas- 
ures which are often far more really important than 
those which are immediate or direct. How seldom do 
we find the principles that underlie our legislation 
impartially and judicially examined.' . . . 

Most of his time was, however, occupied with Parlia- 
mentary questions, and he was asked to join the London 
Committee of Irish Landowners, where his services 
were much valued. He wrote a memorandum upon 



324 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

several points in the new Land Bill, which he laid 
before Ministers to consider, and two letters to the 
Times on the same subject. He had a great belief 
in the purchase policy. He thought 'there could be 
no worse system than that under which rents are 
arbitrarily reduced on a scale out of all proportion to the 
fall of agricultural prices, while tenant right rises 
higher and higher under the pressure of extreme com- 
petition — under which vast masses of property ■ — 
bought in innumerable instances at the invitation of 
Government and held under clear parliamentary titles 
— are transferred without compensation from one 
class to another, under which the main object of popu- 
lar politics is to break contracts and annul debts.' 

To Judge O'Connor Morris he wrote on June 1, 
1896: 

'My dear Judge, — I was just going to write to you 
to say how delighted I was with your article in the 
Fortnightly — which I have this afternoon been urging 
all the members of the Landlords' Committee here to 
read carefully before the second reading of the Bill — 
when I found at the Athenaeum your new book. I 
have been looking in it with the keenest interest, and 
it is a real pleasure to me to know that there is a short 
history of Ireland which is not the work of a party 
man. May I thank you very much for the kind way 
in which in this and various other places you speak 
of me. I think the book of the son of Grouchy de- 
fended him successfully about the Bantry Bay affair. 
... I am getting some very interesting reviews from 
America, where it seems the great goddess Democracy 
is a good deal less venerated than of old.' 

A few days after he wrote : 

June 4, 1896. — ' I have been reading a good deal of 
your History, including the part which I know the best, 



DEBATES ON THE LAND BILL 325 

and I can most truly say that it seems to me a most 
masterly performance, both from the literary and the 
historical side. It interested me like a novel, and I 
am full of admiration for the amount you have put 
into such a small space and for the admirable sanity 
of judgment and judicial spirit (that comes of a County 
Court judge writing history !) you display in writing 
on subjects about which very few people are either 
sane or impartial. . . . This History of Ireland seems to 
me indeed decidedly the best thing of yours I have read.' 

Part of the session was taken up with an Education 
Bill, chiefly intended to give some moderate assistance 
to Voluntary schools and set up some new educational 
authorities. Lecky approved of its main provisions 
and meant to speak on it, but the speech was never 
delivered. Opposition and obstruction made it im- 
possible for the Bill to pass that session and — like 
most Education Bills — it was finally dropped. 

'Never, I suppose, was there an assembly which 
wasted more time than this,' was his experience of 
his first session, 'but then it might do much worse 
things than waste time.' 

The Land Bill came up for debate late in the session, 
and Lecky attended night after night — two all-night 
sittings — during the hot summer weather, endeavour- 
ing with the small band of Irish Unionists to amend 
the clauses which further curtailed the rights of the 
landowners. Many of the questions at issue were 
legal and technical, and he found the legal knowledge 
of his colleague very valuable. 'Carson,' he wrote 
to Judge O'Connor Morris, 'is a great help to us all. 
He is so quick and subtle in catching points.' That 
great and genial fighter, the late Colonel Saunderson, 
at that time leader of the Irish Unionists, enlivened 
the debates with his incisive speeches and witty retorts. 



326 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

It was a trying time for Irish Unionists who wished 
loyally to support the Government. Privileges which 
had been given by the landlords to the tenants were 
by this Bill given to the tenants as rights. The clause 
on the turbary rights was one of those which were most 
contested. Lecky vigorously opposed it in two de- 
bates. The landlords had hitherto allowed the tenants 
to cut turf on their property subject to supervision, 
but by this clause the favour they had granted was 
transformed to the tenants as a right. Swift had 
already shown how injurious was the cutting of turf 
without any regularity, and anyone who knew about 
Irish land was aware of this fact. The landlord was 
deprived of his right not, as Lecky said, because he 
had abused it. 'It was because of his own free will 
and generosity ' he had chosen to grant these privileges 
to the tenants, that they were to be taken away from 
him for all future time and he was to lose all power of 
supervision and control. It was difficult to conceive 
a more direct and absolute violation of the rights of 
property than this.' 1 

There was one curious little episode in which Union- 
ists and Nationalists were agreed. It was provided 
by the Land Purchase Act of 1891 that the landlords 
should be paid in Land Stock, although they had 
asked to be paid in cash, as stock was very low at that 
time. Now that Land Stock was considerably above 
par the Government insisted on cash payment. 'The 
extreme shabbiness of this proceeding/ said Lecky, 
'was strongly felt, and the interests of both landlords 
and tenants were favourable to the existing system.. 
Both sides of Irish politicians accordingly combined 



1 The clause was amended in the House of Lords and made 
harmless. 



IRISH LAND BILL CARRIED 327 

to oppose the Government scheme. The Irish attend- 
ance was very full. Many of the English Conserva- 
tives were absent attending a royal marriage, and the 
Government was defeated by a majority of sixteen' 
(July 22). 

The Irish Unionists' amendments were outvoted by 
large majorities. English Conservatives neither knew 
nor cared much, and supported the Government; 
among the exceptions were the two sons of the Prime 
Minister, who steadily supported the Irish Unionists' 
vote. The Bill, however, was considerably improved 
in the House of Lords, where the Irish landlords were 
supported by a large body of independent peers. 



CHAPTER XIII 

1896-1898. 

Mr. Andrew White's 'Warfare of Science with Theology' — 
Travels in Austria and Hungary — T.C.D. Historical and 
Philosophical Societies — 'Cambridge Modern History' — 
The 'Map of Life' — Introduction to 'Life of Lord Strat- 
ford' — The Irish University Question — Report of Commis- 
sion on Financial Relations — Over-taxation of Ireland 

— Combined Protest of Unionists and Nationalists — Sir 
Horace Plunkett — English Agricultural Rating Act — 
Ireland's Grievance — Lord Dufferin's Views — Sunday 
Closing Act — Diamond Jubilee — Privy Councillorship — 
Society in Trinity College — Private Papers of Wilberforce 

— Ecclef echan — Burke Centenary — Speech on Burke. 

During a stay at Ems in the summer Lecky wrote his 
views on some political tendencies in England for the 
North American Review, and he reviewed Mr. Andrew 
White's ' History of the Warfare of Science with Theol- 
ogy in Christendom.' Mr. White had sent him his 
book, which Lecky considered one of the most compre- 
hensive and most valuable historical works that had 
appeared for many years. 

The subject specially appealed to him as he had 
dealt with various aspects of it in his own books, and 
he had the advantage of knowing the distinguished 
author, with whom he had much pleasant intercourse 
both in Paris and in London. 'I have been reading 
here/ he wrote in a letter to Mr. Bayard, 'very care- 
fully and with great admiration for your countryman, 

328 



SPEECH AT THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 329 

Mr. Andrew White's " History of the Warfare of 
Science with Theology." It is a long time since I 
have read a book which seemed to me so valuable and 
interesting. I wish it were more known in England. 
I am sending a short notice to the Times (I do not yet 
know whether they will find room for it 1 ) in hopes of 
helping it a little.' In the course of the summer he 
went with his wife to Munich, Zell-am-See, Vienna, 
and Budapest. The Hungarians were celebrating the 
thousand-years jubilee of their national existence, and 
they had an interesting historical and industrial ex- 
hibition, where, among other anthropological remains, 
might be seen the gigantic skeleton of their great 
founder and hero Arpad. Lecky admired the situ- 
ation of Budapest and found Hungary a very attrac- 
tive country. With a strong national bias the 
Hungarians — at least those of the upper classes — com- 
bine all the charm of a cosmopolitan education, and 
intercourse with them was easy and pleasant. The 
friends Mr. and Mrs. Lecky had made at Campiglio 
were extremely kind and hospitable to them and they 
saw the place under the best auspices. 

In November Lecky had to be again in Ireland, 
having promised to speak at the inaugural meetings 
of both the Historical and Philosophical Societies. At 
the Historical Society the auditor, Mr. Upington, read 
a paper on South Africa, and Lecky made a speech to 
which reference has already been made. 2 South 
African affairs took up a large place that year in the 
politics of the country, and were eagerly watched. The 
memory of the Raid, of its causes and consequences, 
is too fresh in . everyone's mind to need rehearsal. 



1 It appeared in the Times of December 8, 1896. 

2 See ante, p. 200. 



330 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Lecky, in commenting on the situation, said that the 
first object of true statesmanship must be to restore 
the confidence which had been so seriously shaken, 
and for a long period great tact, patience, firmness, 
and self-control would be needed in the guidance of 
South African affairs. Few greater calamities could 
befall the nation than an armed conflict in the Trans- 
vaal. 

In the course of the year he received a pressing 
request from Lord Acton to write for the 'Cambridge 
Modern History/ which the syndics of the University 
Press proposed to edit. Lord Acton wrote, with the 
courtesy that distinguished him, that so much of his 
success depended on Mr. Lecky's co-operation that 
he would be glad to assign to him any part he preferred. 
He suggested a chapter or two of English history from 
the middle of the eighteenth century, and especially 
a history of the French Revolution, as Lecky's treat- 
ment of the subject in his History of England had 
shown that no one could do it better. 

Lecky was not very enthusiastic about the 'com- 
posite enterprise,' and he did not wish to undertake a 
long book, such as was proposed, which would require 
a great deal of fresh research, and for which his parlia- 
mentary duties left him no time. He had set himself 
another literary task, but he agreed to write about 
Canning 'from the death of Londonderry to his own.' 
The chapter was to be in Volume IX. and would not 
be required for some years. It was, however, not 
written. 

The relations between England and America that 
year required much judicious statesmanship, owing to 
the attitude of President Cleveland about the Venezue- 
lan boundary dispute; and fortunately by the end of 
the year the matter was in a fair way of being settled. 




WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 
From a Photograph by Bassano, 1897 



BEGINS THE 'MAP OF LIFE' 331 

In consequence of the election of a new President, Mr. 
Bayard's departure was now approaching, and Lecky 
wrote to him on December 23, 1896: 

' Thank you so much for thinking of us and for your 
kind present [the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Bayard]. 
I always think these closing days of the year not a 
cheerful but rather a painful time, when one thinks of 
partings past and to come. I hope, however, that 
whatever politics may do, you will not bid a final fare- 
well to us, but will follow the good example of Lowell, 
who paid us visits to the end. I am glad the year is 
ending with the clouds between our nations dispersed, 
and how much you have done to knit them together! 
I am sure the warm personal friendships that you and 
Mrs. Bayard have known so well how to make, do 
more perhaps than any other »thing to awake the feel- 
ing of kindred between English and Americans. When 
you leave us, you will both leave memories behind 
you that will not speedily be effaced.' 

In December, Lecky began his book on the conduct 
of life, in which he intended to embody some of the 
conclusions he had formed on that subject. For 
many years past he had written down in his common- 
place books thoughts and observations bearing upon 
it, and it had always been his wish to co-ordinate 
them some day into a whole, embracing conduct and 
character. As it was a book which required no re- 
search, he was able to combine the writing of it with 
his parliamentary work. 

When Parliament was sitting he had, however, a 
large number of letters to answer. Added to his 
usual correspondence were now the many letters from 
and to constituents applying for places through their 
members; letters to Ministers on their behalf; those 
concerning the interests of Trinity College or of the 



332 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

various professions or educational endowments; in 
fact a variety of questions seemed to arise every day. 
He never kept a secretary; he answered everything 
himself, and business letters usually the same day, 
for he disliked arrears. 

He took much pains always to do what his corre- 
spondents asked him, and many were the grateful 
acknowledgments which he received. He daily took 
a bundle of letters to the House of Commons to answer, 
endeavouring to keep the mornings as much as possible 
for literary work. Never was there a man more regu- 
lar in his habits. 

Early in the following year he contributed, at the 
request of Miss Canning, a short introduction to an 
abridged life of her father, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, 
which Miss A. L. Lee had written. His personal 
recollections gave a vivid touch to the subject. 'Sel- 
dom indeed,' he wrote, 'has there been a man more 
clearly marked by nature as a king of men. Men 
might like him or dislike him, but it was scarcely pos- 
sible to come into his presence without feeling his 
magnetic power, without recognising the commanding 
force of his intellect and character.' 

The session of 1897 was largely occupied with Irish 
affairs. It was erroneously believed at that time that 
the Irish University question was approaching its 
solution, and that a Conservative Government were 
going to settle it. As these pages have shown, Lecky 
had for years past watched the various attempts made 
to meet the demands of the Catholics, and he had given 
up the hope that the liberal policy of Trinity College 
would finally overcome their opposition. In Decem- 
ber 1895, after his election, there had been some cor- 
respondence on the subject in the Times between him 
and Dr. O'Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of 



IRISH UNIVERSITY QUESTION 333 

Limerick. Lecky, in his speech at his nomination — 
taking a survey of the whole political situation — 
had said: 'It is also very probable that we shall soon 
find ourselves face to face with a new University ques- 
tion. It is idle to discuss its nature until the inten- 
tions of the Government are disclosed. On this subject 
it appears to me that two special duties devolve upon 
the members for this University; one is to guard sedu- 
lously its national and unsectarian character.' . . . 

Bishop O'Dwyer, in a letter to the Times, 1 said that 
he had been struck with these words 'in Mr. Lecky's 
remarkable speech at his nomination for Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin.' He however took exception to the 
terms 'national and unsectarian/ and put forward the 
Catholic claims to separate University education. 
Lecky in his answer 2 defined the position of Trinity 
College, showing all it had done to place the Roman 
Catholics on an equal footing with the Protestants, 
and he upheld its national and unsectarian charac- 
ter, while he did not contend that nothing more 
should be done to meet their wishes. The question 
was further discussed in letters 3 which excited a good 
deal of interest at the time, and as a leading article 
of the Times said, 'had thrown much light upon the 
subject.' 

At the outset of the session of 1897 the members 
for Trinity College found themselves confronted with 
the Catholic claims, which were brought forward in 
an amendment on the Address. Although this ques- 
tion has now been settled, it may be of some interest 



1 December 13, 1895. of December 19 and 25, and 

2 Times of December 15. another from Lecky in the 

3 Two more letters from the Times of December 20. 
Bishop appeared in the Times 



334 WILLIAM EDWAKD HARTPOLE LECKY 

to record the efforts of those who have brought a 
weighty influence to bear on the matter. On the 
second day of the debate, Lecky made a speech giv- 
ing his views and those of the University he repre- 
sented. He said he felt that the number of Catholics 
who received University education was inadequate, 
although the disproportion between the number of 
Protestant and Catholic students was partly explained 
by the fact that an enormous preponderance of the 
Roman Catholic population could not afford Univer- 
sity education, and also that divinity students formed 
a large proportion of the Protestant students, whilst 
Catholic divinity students were educated at May- 
nooth. 'Trinity College,' he said in the course of his 
speech, 'regretted that Catholic students did not 
come to it more freely, and that they did not think 
the University of Moore and Sheil, and of the immense 
majority of Catholic laymen who had played a great 
part in recent Irish history, good enough for them. 
But it recognised clearly that the time had come 
for some modifications in the University system in 
Ireland, and it only wished well to the Government 
in the action which they might take.' At the same 
time, he could not agree with Irish members as to 
the extent of the grievance. He pointed out how, 
as far back as 1793, long before the English Univer- 
sities had taken such a step, Trinity College threw 
open its degrees ' to the Catholics, and how at the 
present time ' every post, from the highest to the low- 
est — every honour and prize — was open to every 
denomination in Ireland.' The Divinity School stood 
apart from the rest of the College, and had no relation 
to anyone who was not reading for Anglican orders; 
and Roman Catholic divinity students were amply 
provided for at Maynooth, which had received a large 



SPEECH ON THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION 335 

grant from the Irish Church Fund. It might be justly 
objected that there was no definite religious teaching 
for Roman Catholic students in Trinity College, but 
it was notorious that the College authorities were 
ready to make for them such provision as they had 
made for Presbyterian students — who were taught 
by their ministers at the expense of the College — if 
the Catholics would only accept it. 

Personally, he owned, he was somewhat half-hearted 
on the question. In his opinion, 'there could be no 
greater misfortune for Ireland than that members of 
the two religions in their early days should be entirely 
separated ; that young men at a time when their hearts 
were warm, when their enthusiasms were at their 
height, and when they were forming friendships which 
might mould their future lives, should be kept apart 
and should know nothing of each other. . . the teaching 
of a University did not come merely from its profes- 
sors. An immense proportion came also from the 
stimulus of the students, and he believed the more 
they narrowed the area from which that competition 
was derived, the more feeble that stimulus would 
become/ After going through the history of the 
various unsuccessful movements to legislate on the 
subject, he laid down some of the conditions essential 
to the success of any further legislation, the first one 
being that the Government should make certain that 
their offer would be accepted, and he finally repeated 
that if Trinity was left unmolested to do its own work, 
it 'would certainly not play the part of the dog in 
the manger or be hostile to anything that might be 
set up for the benefit of the Roman Catholics in 
Ireland.' 

Lecky's speech was received with much sympathy, 
and the First Lord of the Treasury, who had for many 



336 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

years been favourable to the Roman Catholic demand, 
expressed his general agreement with it. He showed, 
however, that the time was not yet ripe for a settle- 
ment, and that it was essential, as Lecky had said, 
not to propose a scheme without being certain that 
it would be acceptable. The sympathetic attitude of 
Mr. Balfour was once more recognised, and the matter 
remained in abeyance for the time, the amendment 
being withdrawn, and the question dropped. Lecky 
received from both Catholics and Protestants expres- 
sions of gratification at the attitude he had taken up 
in regard to this question. His predecessor and old 
friend, Lord Rathmore, wrote that he thought the 
speech ' admirable in every way — both the think- 
ing and the language exactly what was to be de- 
sired for the good name of Trinity, as well as for 
your own. You have evidently made a great hit 
and many will, I am sure, wish you joy of your 
success.' . . . 

The moderate tone of the debate seemed to the Irish 
Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops a hopeful 
sign that the question was now within measurable 
distance of a settlement. In June they held a meeting 
at Maynooth and made an important pronouncement. 
They referred in an appreciative manner to the vari- 
ous members who had spoken in the debate on behalf 
of Catholic University education : 

'We desire,' they said, 'to mark in particular the 
fair and liberal attitude taken up by Mr. Lecky. His 
own personal eminence, together with the special 
authority attaching to his statements as the represent- 
ative of Dublin University, lend importance to his 
speech, in which we very gladly observe a tone that 
does credit to himself and to the distinguished constit- 
uency which he represents. Naturally enough, view- 



FINANCIAL RELATIONS 337 

ing the question from a different standpoint from 
ours, Mr. Lecky put forward on the minor aspects of 
the question some views from which we should dissent. 
But we note with very sincere pleasure the practical 
conclusions at which he arrived and the expression of 
his hope "that the Government would see their way 
to gratify the wish of the Irish Catholics." ' 

In their statement they endeavoured to meet 'the 
contingency which, as affecting the Government, Mr. 
Lecky and Mr. Balfour seemed to apprehend, of pro- 
posing a scheme without being tolerably sure that 
it will be accepted/ and they agreed to a prepon- 
derance of laymen on the governing body; to pub- 
lic funds being solely applied to secular teaching; 
to open up degrees, honours, and emoluments to 
all- comers; and to safeguard the position of the 
professors, a point upon which Lecky had specially 
insisted. 

The question came again before Parliament on July 
9 of that year, when the First Lord of the Treasury, 
while recognising the importance of the statements 
made by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and endorsing 
the views he had previously expressed in favour of a 
Catholic University, did not give much hope that he 
would be able to introduce such a measure in the fol- 
lowing session, as it was a very contentious one and he 
was pledged to one important Bill for Ireland already. 
It was well known that Ministers were divided on the 
subject, and that an attempt to legislate on it would 
break up the Cabinet. 

Another question had now become prominent, that 
of the financial relations between England and Ireland. 
In 1894 a Royal Commission had been appointed to 
make a thorough investigation into this matter, both 
as regards the financial relations and the taxable 
23 



338 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

capacity 1 of the two countries. Their report was 
published in the autumn of 1896, and their conclu- 
sions briefly were that whereas the taxable capacity 
of Ireland was not more than one-twentieth of that 
of Great Britain, she bore no less than about one- 
eleventh part of the taxation, so that she was over- 
taxed to the extent of two and three quarter millions 
a year. Though Irishmen had long felt that there 
was a financial grievance, the Report forcibly brought 
it home to them. Irish Unionists and Nationalists 
were equally stirred by it. The grievance was a na- 
tional one, and to obtain redress became a common 
object. The Government, not satisfied with the con- 
clusions of the Report, desired to appoint another 
Commission, but this met with much opposition. A 
Committee of men holding the most various political 
opinions was formed in Ireland; public meetings were 
held all over the country and speeches were made 
calling for redress. As this was a non-political ques- 
tion, Unionist and Home Rule members met in con- 
ference in order to agree upon a common line of action 
in Parliament. Colonel Saunderson presided, and 
Lecky took part in the proceedings. Both were sub- 
sequently deputed, with Mr. Healy and Mr. Clancy, 
to frame resolutions for further consideration. The 
question came up for debate in the House of Commons, 
March 29, on a motion of Mr. Blake, and was discussed 
for three days. It was not till the last day that Lecky 
had the opportunity of giving his views on the subject. 
He clearly showed that Ireland was entitled to have 



1 The relative taxable capac- the people of each country 

ity was mainly determined by according to the income-tax 

a comparison of the aggregate assessment and other tests. 
annual income possessed by 



FINANCIAL RELATIONS 339 

separate treatment. There had been no substantial 
grievance before 1853, when Mr. Gladstone had im- 
posed the income-tax, from which she had been up to 
that time exempted. Mr. Gladstone argued that by 
repealing certain consolidated duties which had forty 
years to run, Ireland would gain, as the income-tax 
charge, though a heavier charge, would only last a few 
years. The result was that a capital debt of four 
millions was wiped out, but Ireland had since paid more 
than twenty-four millions of income-tax. Lecky had 
heard a great deal about that matter in early days, as 
General Dunne, who had strongly opposed Mr. Glad- 
stone's measure in Parliament, had been an intimate 
friend of his father. General Dunne had made the 
question his own, and had after a struggle of ten years 
succeeded in obtaining a Committee to inquire into 
the question of Irish taxation. It was then recog- 
nised, and at different times subsequently, that Ire- 
land was a separate fiscal entity. Lecky supported this 
view up to the hilt with facts and arguments : 

'Some people seemed to consider Ireland a kind of 
intermittent and fluctuating personality — something 
like Mr. Hyde and Mr. Jekyll — an integral portion 
when it was a question of taxation and therefore en- 
titled to no exemptions — a separate entity when it was 
a question of rating and therefore entitled to no relief. 
. . . There was hardly any single subject of legisla- 
tion in which Ireland was not legislated for separately. 
They had separate legislation about Church establish- 
ments, about land, police, local government, education, 
and even in some respects about marriage. All that 
had gone on for ninety-seven years after the Union, 
and therefore it was preposterous to say that in askmg 
that Ireland should be legislated for separately in 
financial matters they were acting in a manner incon- 
sistent with the Union.' 



340 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The Government were now proposing to appoint a 
fresh Commission, which he understood should be sup- 
plementary to the former one. He suggested that 
there should be a judicial inquiry into the doctrine of 
what constituted Imperial taxation and into the way 
in which the money in each country was expended. 
As for the remedy, Lecky differed from the National- 
ist members; he did not think it could be found in 
abated taxation but in an equivalent grant from the 
Imperial exchequer. He showed once more very for- 
cibly how injuriously the land laws had affected Ire- 
land, and expressed the hope that the Government 
would succeed in converting Ireland into a country 
of peasant proprietors, because he believed that 

'though it would not bring about a millennium in Ire- 
land, it was the only way in which they could extri- 
cate the country from the confusion into which 
repeated confiscations and breaches of contract had 
brought it; but ... if they did not wish the peasant 
proprietary to be the most ghastly of failures they 
must produce in Ireland a higher level of agricultural 
industry and agricultural skill than at present existed. 
This could only be done by extending to Ireland some 
system of agricultural education like that which 
prevailed in Denmark and other countries of Europe. 
This, he believed, was the direction which sooner or 
later their policy would inevitably take, and it was by 
such measures that any inequality that now existed 
in their taxation could, he thought, be best remedied.' 

This policy has been carried out through the ini- 
tiative of one for whom Lecky entertained a warm 
friendship and whom he called 'the only constructive 
statesman in Ireland/ Sir Horace Plunkett. As far 
back as 1889, Sir Horace Plunkett had started the 
co-operative movement in Ireland; out of it grew the 



AGKICULTURAL RATING ACT 341 

Irish Agricultural Organisation Society, which was 
inaugurated in 1894. The following year, in order 
further to develop the movement, he formed the Recess 
Committee, composed of men of all parties. Lecky was 
asked to join it, but though he was in full sympathy 
with the object, other calls on his time prevented him 
taking an active part in the matter. Investigations 
were made by this Committee into the agricultural and 
industrial conditions of a great many European coun- 
tries, and the results were summed up in a valuable 
report which was forwarded to the Chief Secretary with 
the recommendation that a Government Department 
should be created under a Minister responsible to Par- 
liament. This led up to the creation of the State 
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, 
in 1899, of which Sir Horace Plunkett was the head 
till the Liberals came into power. 

Lecky's speech on the financial relations made a great 
impression, as the letters which he received on the sub- 
ject showed. It was generally thought, wrote a legal 
friend from Ireland, 'the speech of the debate.' 

He had occasion to refer again to the subject on the 
motion brought forward, on May 6, by Mr. Knox, an 
Ulster member, to extend the English Agricultural 
Rating Act to Ireland. Lecky objected to the Govern- 
ment having excluded Ireland from the operation of 
the Act, 'the portion of the Empire which was the 
poorest, which was the most purely agricultural and 
in which local rates were the most heavy, both abso- 
lutely and in proportion to the population/ and he 
made a forcible appeal to them to redress this injustice. 
But though Irish members were unanimous, the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer was obdurate and the motion 
was lost. 

Further efforts, however, were made. An urgent 



342 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LEC&Y 

letter asking the Government to reconsider their posi- 
tion was addressed to Mr. Balfour by twelve prominent 
Unionist members, of whom Lecky was one. In the 
face of pressure brought to bear on all sides, the Gov- 
ernment could no longer ignore the claims of Ireland 
and they made a small concession. On May 21 the 
First Lord of the Treasury stated that while in the 
view of the Government Ireland possessed no claim 
to be treated in the rating question on lines similar 
to those adopted in England, they proposed to deal 
with the matter in an Irish Local Government Bill 
to be introduced in the following session, the plan 
being that by a subvention from the Exchequer the 
landlords should be relieved of half the poor rates and 
the tenants of half the county cess. 

Lord Dufferin had now returned home after a bril- 
liant career in many parts of the world, and he was 
making his influential voice heard again in Irish poli- 
tics, to the great satisfaction of his friends and admirers. 
On receiving from him a copy of a speech about the 
land question, Lecky wrote: 

House of Commons: May 4, 1897. — ' Dear Lord 
Dufferin, — I had already cut your admirable speech 
out of an Irish paper, and I am delighted to have 
another copy, but I most earnestly hope that you will 
have it printed separately and largely distributed. 
I know nothing more able on the subject, and even if 
it had been far less admirably put, it would have a 
great influence as coming from you. There is some- 
thing I find almost maddening in the gross and pal- 
pable dishonesty, of Irish land legislation, and it is all 
the worse as it is now very difficult to argue against it, 
as all the premises of dishonesty have passed into the 
statute-book and been fully recognised by both par- 
ties. I do not know whether this omnipotent and 
languid Government — languid because omnipotent 



LORD dufferin's views 343 

— will do anything of real use in the matter. The 
vestigia retrorsum are, I fear, impossible. Loans to 
landlords at low interest and a remodelling of tithe 
rent-charge might do some good. I suppose, how- 
ever, that owing to the general fall in the rate of 
interest the charges on the more solvent estates have 
during the last few years somewhat diminished. I hope 
you will be sometimes here in London to help us. 

' I wrote what I could in my " Democracy and Lib- 
erty" with a view of bringing the injustice before the 
public, and (except on the question of compensation 
for disturbance) I think my views agree with yours. 
I much object to the references of the new Commission 
on the financial relations, which absolutely omit the 
questions of comparative wealth and comparative 
progress from among the elements of consideration. 
I venture to send you what I said about it, restoring 
some passages which the reporters omitted.' 

Lord Dufferin answered: 

Clandeboye: May 8, 1897. — ' My dear Lecky, — I 
have read your speech two or three times over with 
the greatest admiration. It is so clear, so sober, and 
so fair. I have not taken any part in the financial 
relations controversy and do not propose to do so, 
for now that the fresh Commission may be considered 
a fait accompli 1 there is no alternative but to wait, at 
all events before we can expect any great relief to be 
granted us. But the conduct of the Government in 
regard to the non-extension of the Rating Bill to Ire- 
land is monstrous, and I have no patience with all 
their talk about Ireland not being a separate "entity," 
as if it had ever been anything else, as you most forcibly 
demonstrate. I am so glad, too, that you did not lose 
the opportunity of scourging the infamous land legis- 
lation of 1881 and the following years. In short, 
from first to last, I thought your speech most admi- 

1 It was never appointed. 



344 WILLIAM EDWAKD HAETPOLE LECKY 

rable, and we ought all to be very grateful to you 
for it.' 

Lecky had undertaken to move during the session 
the second reading of the Irish Sunday Closing Bill, 
the object of which was to make the Sunday Closing 
Act of 1878 permanent, to extend it to the five towns 
that were exempted from its operations, and to pro- 
hibit throughout the country the sale of intoxicating 
liquor after nine o'clock on Saturday night. Lecky, 
in his speech, gave a history of the movement, and 
showed how efficaciously the Sunday closing had 
operated and how large a consensus of public opinion 
was in favour of this Bill. An Irish member tried to 
checkmate him by quoting some passages from the 
'Democracy and Liberty,' but it was not difficult to 
show that there was no disparity between the views 
expressed on this occasion and those in his book. He 
thought 'there should be as little legislative interfer- 
ence as possible with private habits, and that they 
ought never in these questions to precede public opin- 
ion but only to follow it and even lag a little behind 
it. He believed measures of this kind ought only to 
be carried when called for by a large and persistent 
majority, and even then should be as far as possible 
tentative and gradual. It was because the Bill before 
the House seemed to him fully to meet these require- 
ments that he had undertaken to bring it forward/ 
There was a good deal of cross-voting, Mr. Balfour 
and Mr. Morley voting for it; but many Nationalists 
opposed it, and the second reading was only carried 
by a majority of twenty-nine. The inadequate support 
with which it met in the House gave it no chance of 
passing that year. 

It was the year of the Diamond Jubilee, which was 
celebrated by all the Queen's subjects with feelings of 



DIAMOND JUBILEE 345 

warm devotion and gratitude. In the course of it, 
Lecky had to attend a number of Jubilee and other 
public functions, beginning with a State banquet in 
St. Patrick's Hall, Dublin, on March 13. Lord Cado- 
gan, who wished to make the dinner worthy of the occa- 
sion, had gathered together as far as possible all that 
was most distinguished and representative in Ireland. 
It was a unique assembly, and the banquet worthily 
inaugurated the Jubilee festivities. The Queen's pro- 
cession to St. Paul's on Jubilee Day was from its very 
nature peculiarly impressive. The manifestations of 
loyalty of the millions along the Queen's passage were 
a most moving sight, and the presence of Colonial 
premiers, Indian princes, and enormous numbers of 
troops — Indian, Colonial, British — such as had never 
been seen before, represented in an imposing manner 
the united strength of a great Empire. 

The following day the House of Commons availed 
itself of an ancient privilege, to present in person a loyal 
address to the Queen, but by some mistake the cere- 
mony was so curtailed that many of the members who 
followed the Speaker were unable to get into the Royal 
presence. This caused some dissatisfaction among a 
body of men who, of all others, are the most tenacious 
about their rights. The Queen, having heard of this, 
gave her faithful Commons a special garden-party at 
Windsor, which was one of the most successful func- 
tions of the year. She drove about among her guests, 
speaking to some of them and showing a genial interest 
in the proceedings. 

'The whole Jubilee has gone off admirably,' Lecky 
wrote to Judge Go wan, ' and I am glad that the Col- 
onies and India have filled, after the Queen, the first 
place in the picture. At the last Jubilee this place 
was more taken by foreign princes. I think the Naval 



346 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

Review has had a great and most pacific effect. The 
idea had grown up that England had no strength at 
all proportionate to her bigness, and this has now a 
good deal disappeared. We have had on the whole 
a quiet session, and I think the Government has a 
good deal strengthened. Irish landlords, however, 
are being much reduced, and in consequence a good 
deal discontented. We have a very big Bill before 
us next session.' 

Among the honours bestowed, a Privy Gouncillorship 
was conferred on Lecky, on account of 'your very great 
literary eminence as well as the position you have 
acquired in Parliament/ wrote Lord Salisbury. The 
nomination was received by the public with general 
approval. Innumerable were the warm letters of con- 
gratulation which he received from all sides — politi- 
cal opponents as well as friends, and the way the honour 
was conferred and the genuine satisfaction which it 
seemed to cause, could but be gratifying to him. 1 

' Thank you for your kind congratulations/ he wrote 
to Mr. Booth ; ' I cannot say I care much for the feathers 
of life, but this is at least a quiet, gentlemanly thing, 
and honours that come unasked for and unexpected 
give some little pleasure/ 

Apart from the Jubilee functions, he had to attend 
various public dinners and make post-prandial speeches 
in the course of the season, and he was asked to preside 
over the annual dinner of the Booksellers' Provident 



1 A statesman — now dead Constitutional sentiment and 

— wrote, in congratulating principle which has, I think, 

him, 'Apart and distinct from been ever written. I have 

your other valuable works, often wished to tell you how 

your last book on Liberty and incomparable a friend and 

Democracy is the one best companion I have made it.' 
storehouse of wise and noble 



ECCLEFECHAN 347 

Institution, which took place in May. One of the inter- 
esting features of the dinner was that Lord Roberts, 
who had recently published his 'Forty-One Years in 
India,' was asked to reply to the toast of Literature. 
It did not often happen, as Lecky said in the course of 
his speech, that a Field-Marshal was selected as the 
most appropriate person to speak for Literature. 

During the summer holidays Lecky went for a few 
weeks' bracing to Scotland, enjoying some beautiful 
coach-driving and sails through lovely scenery and 
very excellent air, and he afterwards spent some weeks 
in Holland, and in the undisturbed quiet of a rural life 
he wrote a good deal of the ' Map of Life.' 

In October he was again in Ireland, full of engage- 
ments of all sorts. He maintained that in no other 
country did he find more agreeable and amusing society. 
He spent some pleasant evenings with the Fellows of 
Trinity College, 'anecdotes flying about like a perfect 
meteoric shower/ as he said on one occasion, and he 
did at the same time a good deal of serious reading, 
and wrote a short review of the private papers of Wil- 
liam Wilberforce for Literature. 1 On the way home 
from the North of Ireland he and his wife stopped at 
Carlisle and made a pilgrimage to Carlyle's birthplace, 
Ecclefechan. The house where he was born had been 
turned into a little museum, where some early auto- 
graph letters of his were exhibited. They went to 
Carlyle's grave, characteristic in its simplicity, with 
only the names and dates of birth and death of himself 
and his brother on the same slab. A number of 
Carlyle's relations were buried on either side, con- 
spicuous among them his father, 'James Carlyle, 



1 Now the Literary Supplement of the Times. The review 
appeared in the number of October 23. 



348 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

mason.' It seemed strange to realise that out of such 
surroundings came one of the men who most influenced 
English thought in the nineteenth century. But 
' genius/ as Lecky says, ' is like the wind that bloweth 
where it listeth. n 

The year 1897 was the centenary of the death of 
Burke. Lecky's study of Burke was fresh in the mem- 
ory of those who had read his ' History of the Eigh- 
teenth Century/ and when Dublin University resolved 
to commemorate the centenary of one of its greatest 
alumni, the Provost asked Lecky to propose the 
memory of Burke on the occasion, and he could not 
refuse. On December 7, a State banquet was given 
in the dining-hall of Trinity College, at which the 
Provost, Dr. Salmon, presided and the Lord Lieuten- 
ant was present. Burke's fine portrait had been trans- 
ferred from the examination hall and placed, wreathed 
in palms, before the guests. There was a magnifi- 
cent display of flowers and old College silver on the 
table 'and the doctors in their red gowns gave much 
colour to the scene.' But the chief interest was the 
speaking, which was, as usual on such occasions- in 
Ireland, of a very high order. 

The Provost, Dr. Salmon, in his original and skilful 
way, paid an appreciative tribute to the Lord Lieuten- 
ant and to the office which he held ; and Lord Cadogan 
in his reply showed how much he had identified him- 
self with everything that concerned the real welfare 
of Ireland. Lecky spoke to the memory of Burke in 
the following words: 

'I esteem it a great honour to be asked to speak on 
the memory of Burke in his own University, but it is 
an honour which carries with it no small embarrass- 



Historical and Political Essays, p. 12. 



SPEECH ON BURKE 349 

ment. Burke is a man of such encyclopaedic intellect; 
his splendid genius touches so many and such various 
fields that it would be impossible to deal with it ade- 
quately except at a length which would be wholly 
unsuited to an after-dinner speech, and I have myself 
the difficulty of having already expressed my thoughts 
on the subject in a long and elaborate analysis of his 
merits and defects. 

' I have indeed long believed that Mackintosh in no 
degree exaggerated when he described him as the 
greatest of all modern political philosophers. I 
believe that you will learn more from him than from 
any other — more than from Machiavelli or Montes- 
quieu — more than from Story or Tocqueville or Maine. 
For my own part, I doubt whether there is any other 
writer in all English literature to whom I am so deeply 
indebted. I was looking only the other day at a very 
humble little copy of the " Reflections on the French 
Revolution," marked and annotated at almost every 
page, which for many years had been my favourite 
pocket companion in long, solitary mountain walks in 
Ireland and Switzerland, and I was somewhat startled 
to find that the year when I acquired it was as far back 
as 1855 — the very year in which I entered Trinity 
College. 

'And yet it must be acknowledged that Burke is 
not one of those great men of calm and lucid judgment 
who stand out in history like some Greek temple, 
faultless in its symmetry and its proportion. He was 
a man of strongly contrasted lights and shades, of 
transcendent gifts united with very manifest defects. 
His intellect was in the highest degree both penetrat- 
ing and comprehensive. He saw further and he saw 
deeper than any of his contemporaries, and none of 
them could illuminate a subject with such a splendour 
of eloquence and such a wealth of knowledge and 
thought. But his judgment was often obscured by 
violent gusts of passion, by the force of an overmaster- 



350 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

ing and almost ungovernable imagination — which 
sometimes seemed not merely to adorn but to trans- 
figure what it touched — by violent personal likings 
and dislikings. He was very deficient in that inesti- 
mable gift of tact which more than any other leads to 
success in life. Goldsmith accused him of giving up 
to party what was meant for mankind, but in judging 
this accusation there are two things to be remembered. 
One is that no other writer has shown more powerfully 
than Burke the absolute necessity of strong party 
discipline under a parliamentary government if the 
parliamentary machine is to work for the good of the 
nation, and that in the early part of his career one of 
the great evils to be encountered was party anarchy 
and disintegration. The other is that no man ever 
made a greater sacrifice of party than Burke did when, 
on the occasion of the French Revolution, his party 
in his opinion was acting in opposition to the real 
interests of his country. Still, in more than one page 
of his life we have to deplore the violence with which 
he flung himself into party quarrels and the extreme 
intemperance of his language. His judgment of the 
French Revolution was, I believe, far more profound 
and far-seeing than that of his contemporaries, but it 
cannot reasonably be denied that he greatly under- 
rated the faults and exaggerated the merits of the Gov- 
ernment that preceded it. His crusade for the redress 
of the wrongs of India is a striking example of a poli- 
tician devoting long years of thankless toil to the ser- 
vice of those whom he had never seen and who could 
never reward him, and it appreciably raised in Eng- 
land the sense of our duties to other races; but modern 
research has abundantly shown that Burke was often 
misled and did grave injustice to Warren Hastings 
and to the other founders of our Indian Empire. He 
attained to almost the highest perfection the beauty 
of style, and his works are full of pages of an eloquence 
beside which the finest passages of his political con- 



BURKE AND DEMOCRACY 351 

temporaries seem feeble and commonplace rhetoric, 
but they are also often disfigured by exaggerated 
invective and gross faults of taste. 

' Nor can Burke be said to be in real harmony with 
our modern type of government. His conception of 
politics was indeed widely different from that which 
now generally prevails. He was as far as possible 
from a democratic statesman. He believed that 
pure democracy would always in the long run prove 
subversive of property, subversive of true freedom, 
subversive of all stability in the State. He believed 
much more than is now the fashion in the difficulties 
and dangers of government, and while strenuously 
maintaining that the welfare of the whole community 
is the true end of politics, he believed that this could 
only be attained by a strong representation of intelli- 
gence, property, and classes, by preserving a balance 
of power in the State, by carefully maintaining its con- 
servative elements. He believed there was no greater 
folly or crime than to bestow political power on those 
who were certain to misuse it. He utterly repudiated 
the notion that the same degrees of liberty, the same 
franchises, the same institutions were good for all 
nations and stages of civilisation, and that political 
institutions rest on natural rights and not on expedi- 
ency. He was prepared to tolerate any amount of 
political anomalies or inequalities if only they worked 
well. His idea of political reform was not that of 
wide, comprehensive, symmetrical, and as the French 
say "logical" measures, but rather of constant adapta- 
tions, gradual, tentative, and cautious, arising out of 
the special circumstances of the nation, correcting 
positive evils, meeting new wants as they rose and care- 
fully following public opinion. He believed that an 
appetite for organic change is one of the worst evils 
that can befall the State. He carried to the highest 
point the reverence for old institutions, habits, and 
traditions, for what he called the 'great influencing 



352 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

prejudices of mankind/ and he believed that anything 
which tended to cut off the nation from its past and 
make it discontented with its institutions was almost 
the sure precursor to its decline. While maintaining 
that a member of Parliament should always consider 
himself as a trustee, he maintained also that he should 
never suffer himself to sink into a mere delegate, abdi- 
cating his independence of judgment and accepting 
binding instructions from his constituents. 

' All this is very alien from the political sentiments 
of our day, but anyone who will be at pains to exam- 
ine the subject will convince himself that these views 
governed the politics of Burke at every period of his 
life. It is no doubt true that when the great explo- 
sion of democracy took place at the French Revolu- 
tion he wrote more on the evils of democracy than in 
former years, but there is, I believe, no real ground 
for the notion of Mr. Buckle that his life was divided 
into two sharply contrasted periods, and the views I 
have enumerated may all be found in his earliest works. 
They were, however, coupled with a constant desire 
for administrative reform. No statesman maintained 
more strongly that the welfare of the whole people is 
the true end of politics, and that the true task of. the 
statesman is to follow and not to precede public opin- 
ion. Adam Smith declared that he was the only man 
he knew who had anticipated his views of political 
economy, and on all such questions he was far in 
advance of his age. He was one of the first and greatest 
of our economical reformers. He was a strenuous 
advocate of a free press, at a time when it was far less 
recognised than at present, and although he was 
utterly opposed to any organic change in the constitu- 
tion of Parliament he was a warm supporter of a crowd 
of measures for purifying its abuses. He advocated 
Grenville's Bill for the better trial of contested elec- 
tions, the abolition of corrupt sinecures, the publica- 
tion of the names of voters in Parliament, the right 



burke's political opinions 353 

of parliamentary reporting. He placed the authority 
of the House of Commons very high, but when at the 
time of the Middlesex election the House endeavoured 
to create a new disability by maintaining that a mem- 
ber who had been expelled by the House could not be 
re-elected, Burke was one of the foremost defenders of 
the rights of the electors. On all these subjects he was 
an advanced Liberal. In the American crisis he advo- 
cated a policy of concession which, if it had been 
carried out, would almost certainly have averted, or 
at least deferred, the Revolution. He was the most 
powerful opponent of the commercial restrictions 
which during the eighteenth century crushed Irish 
industry, and he lost his seat for Bristol through his 
advocacy of Irish free trade. The abolition of the 
penal laws against Roman Catholics, the better educa- 
tion of the Catholic population and their introduction 
into all the privileges of the Constitution, were among 
the objects he most steadily pursued. He wrote on 
the subject as far back as 1765, and it was one of the 
very last that occupied his thoughts. Three things 
he always dreaded in Ireland — as the greatest calam- 
ities that could befall her — the permanent separa- 
tion of Protestants and Catholics into two distinct 
nations; a class warfare detaching the mass of the 
Irish people from the influence of property and edu- 
cation; and a spirit of disloyalty leading to separation 
from Great Britain. In almost the last letter he ever 
wrote he said " Great Britain would be ruined by the 
separation of Ireland, but as there are degrees even in 
ruin it would fall the most heavily on Ireland. By 
such a separation Ireland would become the most com- 
pletely undone country in the world; the most 
wretched, the most distracted, and in the end the 
most desolate part of the habitable globe." 

'It is not, however, by his active political career 
that Burke now lives. If this had been his only title 
to fame more than one of his contemporaries would 

24 



354 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

have surpassed him. He was never a Cabinet Minister 
or the Leader of the Opposition. He did not play the 
same commanding part in Imperial affairs as Chatham 
or as Chatham's illustrious son, nor could he count 
upon the same weight of party or popular support as 
Charles Fox. It is in the profound wisdom and the 
transcendent beauty of his writings on all political 
subjects that he stands alone. In this he has no 
rival, and no approach to a rival among his contempo- 
raries. If I might venture to give an advice to those 
who are now at the age when opinions are forming, 
and when life, for good or ill, is taking its character 
and its course, I could give them no better advice 
than to make a serious and thorough study of the writ- 
ings of Burke. Do not confine yourselves solely to 
those which are best known — to the " Reflections on 
the French Revolution," the "Appeal from the New 
to the Old Whigs," the " Letters on a Jacobin Peace" 
or to the great rhetorical passages in his " Speeches" 
which are so often quoted. Study his minor pamphlets 
— his letters on Irish affairs, his own notes for his 
speeches, and the admirable pages he has written on 
the true province and limitations of government. 
Study thoroughly those four most admirable volumes 
of his correspondence which were published by Lord 
Fitzwilliam, and which in my opinion contain some of 
the best lessons of political wisdom in the language. 
No other political writer has so constantly associated 
transient or ephemeral controversies with eternal 
truths, or has brought to the study of politics such a 
profound insight into human nature or such a wide 
range of acquired knowledge. No other writer saw 
so clearly the obscure, distant, indirect consequences 
of measures, or penetrated so habitually to the bed- 
rock of principle on which political systems rest. 
Burke is sometimes wrong, but he is never superficial. 
In weighing the various arguments of a case his judg- 
ment is sometimes at fault, but the elements of the 



BURKE AT TRINITY COLLEGE 355 

problem are almost always there. He is pre-eminent 
among the small class of writers who teach men to 
think and enlarge our knowledge not merely of politics 
but of human nature. 

' Nor is he less valuable from the purely literary point 
of view. In one of his letters from this University 
he complains that in the study of the ancient writers 
too much attention was paid to the mere language and 
not enough to the meaning it conveyed. Burke was 
one of the greatest masters of words, but he was essen- 
tially great because with him language was never 
for a moment divorced from meaning. Hardly any 
other writer since Shakespeare had such a complete 
mastery of the English tongue, its richness, its vivid- 
ness, and its force. If you desire to write well, few 
things will help you more than a careful study of 
his works. 

'It is surely right that in Trinity College we should 
commemorate this great man, for he was pre-eminently 
one of our own. Swift lived here for a longer time, 
but his college career was neither brilliant nor happy, 
and it was not till long after he had left us that his 
splendid genius began to flower. Goldsmith entered 
college the same year as Burke, but he was one of the 
idlest of students, and I am afraid the " Deserted Vil- 
lage" and the " Vicar of Wakefield" might have been 
equally written if he had never been sent here. But 
Burke certainly owed much to us. In that charming 
picture of Irish eighteenth-century life, the Leadbeater 
Papers, you will find many letters to the son of his old 
schoolmaster Shackleton, written from this place, 
describing his life here. We claim him as the founder 
of our Historical Society, and it was certainly here 
that he first practised the art of debating, of which 
he became so great a master. He obtained a scholar- 
ship, and in addition to the regular studies of the Uni- 
versity he laid here the foundation of his vast and 
multifarious reading. In one of his letters he men- 



356 WILLIAM EDWAED HARTPOLE LECKY 

tions that in the middle of his college course he was 
accustomed to spend nearly every day three hours in 
reading in our great library. 

' He was not only a very great man but emphatically 
a good one. Pure, simple, modest, laborious, and 
retiring in his private life, a warm and steady friend, 
his life was full of acts of unostentatious beneficence, 
and the depth of his affections and the strength of 
his moral principles appear in every portion of his 
life. His life was far from a happy one. He knew the 
bitterness of neglect, poverty, debt, the disappointment 
of many expectations, the long struggle of an almost 
hopeless opposition; and the clouds of a great private 
bereavement and of public calamity hung darkly 
around his closing hours. His public career was swept 
by many storms, and was disfigured by some errors, 
but the more it is studied the more evident it appears 
that it was governed in every period by a sincere and 
disinterested patriotism. No sordid motives, no desire 
for mere popularity ever drew him aside. The chief 
causes of his errors were of another and a nobler 
kind — exaggerated party loyalty, an excessive sensi- 
bility; a compassion for the suffering of others and a 
burning hatred of oppression and wrong that some- 
times became so overmastering that they carried him 
beyond all the bounds of reason and moderation. It 
was those who knew him best who admired him most. 
Of the many tributes that were paid to his memory 
none appear to me more touching than the few simple 
lines which Canning wrote to a friend on hearing of 
his death. "Burke is dead. ... He had among all 
his great qualities that for which the world did not 
give him sufficient credit, of creating in those about 
him very strong attachments and affections as well 
as the unbounded admiration which I every day am 
more and more convinced was his due. . . . He is the 
man that will mark this age, marked as it is itself by 
events, to all time."' 



MANSION HOUSE SPEECH 357 

Professor Dowden followed with an eloquent tribute 
to Burke. Both speeches, said the Dublin Daily 
Express, would probably take a permanent place in 
the literature that clusters round the great career of 
Burke. Dr. Mahaffy proposed the Historical Society, 
which had been founded by Burke and had initiated 
the celebration, and he recalled the time when he had 
'the intellectual treat of hearing the debates carried 
on night after night by the most brilliant group of 
men that he supposed ever came together in the 
Society — David Plunket, Edward Gibson, William 
Lecky, Gerald Fitzgibbon, and by no means least, 
Thomas Dudley, long since dead, a noble victim of 
his intense devotion to the poor and the sick under 
his charge.' 

The auditor, Mr. Irwin, gave some curious details 
about Burke's undergraduate days in connexion with 
the club — the parent of the Historical Society — 
which he had founded. 

The day after the Burke celebration Lecky had to 
speak on the financial relations at a large meeting at 
the Dublin Mansion House. Unionists and Home 
Rulers from various parts of Ireland had come to- 
gether to give their views on financial reform based on 
the findings of the Commission. Lecky summed up the 
opinions of the greatest financial experts about the 
disproportion between the taxation and the taxable 
capacity of Ireland, and he maintained that Unionists 
especially should resist the assertion that Ireland had 
no right to separate treatment. About the remedies 
he spoke with his usual moderation. ' Let us try not 
to injure a good cause by exaggerated statements. . . . 
In my own judgment the real significance of this 
movement is that the report of the Commission estab- 
lishes a strong and equitable claim for the expenditure 



358 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

of a larger amount of Imperial money in developing 
Irish resources/ and he showed that much had already 
been accomplished in that direction. 

He had looked forward to this speech with a good 
deal of alarm, feeling that he was, as often happened, 
between two stools, and that a Mansion House meeting 
would be naturally addicted to extremes, but he 
wanted to define his own position clearly, and he 
wrote afterwards that he had been 'most kindly 
listened to, though taking a more moderate view than 
others.' 



CHAPTER XIV 



1898-1900. 



Irish University Question — Irish Local Government Bill — 
Centenary of the Rebellion — Introduction to Carlyle's 
'French Revolution' — 'Mr. Gregory's Letterbox' — Eng- 
land and Germany — England and the United States — 
Holland — Cannes — Dublin — Alexandra College — In- 
troduction to the revised edition of 'Democracy and 
Liberty' — Portrait of Mr. Gladstone — Distress in the 
West of Ireland — Old Age Pensions Committee — Report 

— Article on Old Age Pensions in the Forum — Irish Liter- 
ary Theatre — Scotland — Holland — Completion of the 
'Map of Life' — South African War — Moral Aspects of the 
War — Florence — Financial Relations — Defence of T.C.D. 
— Dean Milman — Queen Victoria's Visit to Ireland — Irish 
Debates — Holiday in Ireland — Unionist Dissatisfaction 

— General Election — Spiddal — University Election. 

The demand for a Catholic University had been kept 
to the front since the last meeting of Parliament, and 
was being supported on various platforms throughout 
Ireland. In January 1898 a large and representative 
meeting was held in the Dublin Mansion House, where, 
among others, a letter from Lecky was read which 
summed up his views and was largely quoted. 

When Parliament met on February 8 the question 
was again brought forward in an amendment on the 
Address. 

Colonel Saunderson, the Irish Unionist leader, speak- 
ing for Ulster strongly opposed it, and suggested that 

359 



360 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the question might divide the Unionist party. Lecky 
deprecated this and declared that he did not wish to 
press for an Irish University Bill in a year crowded 
with Irish Local Government and other matters, or 
to embarrass the Government, which had done more 
than any other for a long time past to bring the ques- 
tion within the range of practical politics. He had, 
however, come to the conclusion that the Gatholic 
demand was a very real one, as all the memorials 
signed by the classes who could provide University 
education for their sons had shown. The bishops 
had condemned unsectarian education and the laity 
followed the orders of the priests. He had no wish 
for increased denominational education, but he was 
convinced that it was a duty to enable Roman Catholic 
students to compete in all respects with their Protes- 
tant countrymen on an equal footing. He laid great 
stress on the intention expressed by some of the Roman 
Catholic prelates to send candidates for the priesthood 
to a Catholic University, and he gave some curious his- 
torical facts about that aspect of the question. Hely 
Hutchinson, a Provost of Trinity College in the last 
century, wanted a Catholic as well as a Protestant 
divinity school in Trinity College, maintaining that it 
was of the very first political importance that the 
Catholic priesthood should not be educated apart 
from their fellow-countrymen; but this was not car- 
ried out, and in 1795 the Irish Parliament established 
Maynooth. But, said Lecky, 'if even at this later day 
prelates are prepared to give the priesthood a higher 
University education in common with laymen, great 
good would result, and I for my part earnestly hope 
the Government will see their way to do what they 
can to assist them.' The debate went on during two 
days, and showed as before that there was much opposi- 



IRISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 361 

tion in various quarters. Mr. Balfour once more 
expressed his strong sympathy with the wishes of the 
Roman Catholics, but he made it clear that he could 
not 'solve the question' unless he had his party 
behind him, and the amendment was withdrawn. The 
question, however, continued to be discussed in the 
country. A letter from Mr. Balfour to one of his 
constituents, expressing his views on the subject, 
attracted much attention. These views in some 
respects differed from Lecky's, for Mr. Balfour em- 
phasised the Protestant character of Trinity College, 
and he also thought that it would not be to its ad- 
vantage if, through a great influx of Roman Catholic 
students, it were to lose that character. Lecky al- 
ways upheld the wholly unsectarian character of his 
University, and he believed that the number of Catho- 
lic students, though it should certainly be larger than 
it was, would from the nature of the case always be 
much more limited than that of the Protestants. 

Dr. Salmon, the Provost of Trinity College, felt 
impelled by Mr. Balfour's letter to express his views, 
and he contributed to the controversy a remarkable 
article which appeared in the Contemporary Review 
of April 1899. With all the experience and knowledge 
at his command, he maintained the absolutely unsec- 
tarian character of Dublin University, including its 
'atmosphere,' and he declined on behalf of Trinity 
to become one of three sectarian Universities, accord- 
ing to one of the proposed schemes. Whatever else 
was done Trinity would not give up its unsectarian 
character, nor did he think it would be wise to set up 
an unsectarian University for the benefit of Roman 
Catholics instead of frankly giving them what they 
asked for. ' It is long,' wrote Lecky to the Provost, 
' since I have read a better specimen either of reasoning 



362 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

or of literature,' and a few days after he wrote in 
answer to the Provost: 

Brighton: April 4, 1899, — ' I do not think you have 
the least reason to regret that you had to do your 
article hastily. It could hardly, I think, have been 
better done, and if you have in some degree under- 
stated your case, this, in my judgment at least, is 
one of the things which always adds real force to con- 
troversial writing. I always aim at this myself. . . . 
I do not think there is the least possibility of anything 
being done this session about the University ques- 
tion, and the Duke of Devonshire's speech has put it 
off for a long time. I myself think that if anything in 
the sectarian form should hereafter be done, it ought 
to be in an additional grant to the Stephen's Green 
establishment. I think, too, that the T.C.D. position 
would be a good deal strengthened if you had a Ro- 
man Catholic professor to teach his own people their 
theology, ecclesiastical history, and moral philosophy. 
Perhaps if the bishops despair of getting a University 
for themselves, the time may come in which they may 
withdraw their veto from T.C.D. and allow students 
to go there on the understanding that they can get 
this amount of distinctive teaching.' 

The principal measure of the session of 1898 was the 
Irish Local Government Bill. The Irish Secretary, 
Mr. Gerald Balfour, introduced it on February 21 
with a speech which was on the whole well received 
by all parties. The chief provisions of the Bill were 
that it abolished the Grand Juries and transferred 
their powers partly to county councils and partly 
to county courts; and that, as the First Lord of the 
Treasury had promised the previous year, it gave 
relief out of the Exchequer to landlords and tenants 
for half the poor rate and county cess. In the course 
of the debates on the second reading, Lecky gave 



IRISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL 363 

his views on the general aspect of the Bill. He agreed 
that to establish local government on a democratic 
basis, corresponding in the main lines with local gov- 
ernment in England and Scotland, had become politi- 
cally necessary, though if the question was considered 
on its own merits apart from all pledges and political 
necessities, he would not have supported it. He be- 
lieved that Ireland was as little suited for democracy as 
almost any country in Europe, and he did not believe 
in the common doctrine that the same institutions 
were adapted to countries so profoundly different as 
England and Ireland. He regretted the abolition of 
the Grand Juries, which most good judges considered 
to have worked extremely well, but it was impossible 
to resist the change, and he duly recognised the safe- 
guards that had been placed on the new bodies, such 
as keeping the control of the police out of their hands 
and maintaining the rule of excluding from them min- 
isters of religion of all denominations. He wished, how- 
ever, that the safeguards were increased, and when the 
Bill was discussed in Committee he moved an amend- 
ment, giving expression to the wish of a great many 
public bodies and private persons in Ireland, that the 
Government should keep the control and management 
of the lunatic asylums in their own hands and not 
throw the care of this large, poor and unhappily 
increasing class of persons upon perfectly new and 
inexperienced bodies. By keeping the asylums under 
State control they would be following the example of 
nearly all the great democracies of the world. The 
Irish Poor Law guardians were a body most closely 
resembling the future county councils, and their medi- 
cal patronage had been marked by more abuses per- 
haps than any other class of patronage in Ireland. 
The amendment was lost, but the efficiency of the 



364 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

medical officers was subsequently secured by an 
amendment strongly supported by Lecky — that only 
those should be selected who had served for no less than 
five years in an asylum for the treatment of the insane. 
Lecky closely followed the Bill through all its technical 
details, and spoke on various amendments tending to 
improve it. 

The circumstances for introducing the measure had, 
he wrote subsequently, been peculiarly favourable. 
Agitation had gone down: the organisations which 
chiefly stimulated it were both divided and discredited, 
and various influences — the question of financial rela- 
tions being one of the most prominent — had greatly 
improved the relations of classes : 

'If the new councils prove a real success, they will 
form habits that will make future extensions of self- 
government much less dangerous than at present. If 
they become mere centres of corruption, intolerance, 
and disloyalty, they will furnish a new and powerful 
argument against Home Rule. In the meantime, 
the establishment of local government has given the 
opposition in England a welcome reason for adjourn- 
ing to a distant future the question of Home Rule. 
By removing in the eyes of the English public the last 
real grievance of Ireland, it has greatly strengthened 
the Unionist position, and it will be probably found 
to strengthen not less powerfully the case for a reduc- 
tion of the excessive representation of Ireland.' 

He felt, however, that there was a great deal of uncer- 
tainty about the success of the measure, and that much 
depended on the question whether the members of the 
old Grand Juries would be elected and exercise influ- 
ence on the new bodies. If they were excluded, he 
was afraid it might lead to the disappearance of an 
educated and loyal gentry, for there would be little 



FINANCIAL RELATIONS 365 

inducement for them to remain in the country after 
the land legislation had deprived them of all control 
over their properties, and the new legislation had 
taken from them their county duties and interests. 
But he deprecated taking too pessimistic a view of 
the future. 'Great political changes are nearly al- 
ways found to produce both less good and less evil 
than was anticipated' and 'a measure like the Local 
Government Bill could not possibly be rightly judged 
until several years have passed and several elections 
have decided its permanent tendencies.' 1 

Meanwhile the financial relations continued to agitate 
the minds of Unionists and Nationalists. Meetings 
were held in the House of Commons and pressure was 
brought to bear on the Government to give a day for 
discussion. On July 4 Mr. Redmond moved a resolu- 
tion in the House of Commons to call attention to the 
over-taxation of Ireland, at the request, as he stated, 
of a conference of Irish members, presided over by 
Colonel Saunderson, and which consisted of repre- 
sentatives from every political party in Ireland and 
was supported by petitions from 211 Irish representa- 
tive bodies. Lecky seconded the resolution, but in 
regard to the remedies he took, as usual, a different 
standpoint. Having argued that there was a sub- 
stantial grievance, he said that Irish Unionists did 
not wish for any alteration in the existing system of 
taxation or any reduction of the whisky tax; but that 
special financial assistance might, he thought, be given 
in various ways — for instance, by the Government 
taking over the lunatic asylums in Ireland and pro- 
viding for them out of the Consolidated Fund, or 



1 ' The Irish Local Government Act/ Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette, 
March 3, 1899. 



366 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

assisting the great need of technical and agricultural 
education. No Irish money was ever better spent 
than the 40,000Z. a year expended on the Congested 
Districts Board, and no Irish measure of recent years 
had done more real good than that of opening out the 
poorer districts by light railways. He spoke of the 
admirable work of his friend, Mr. Plunkett, which 
showed how much might be done by very moderate 
State assistance in developing Irish industries. 'If 
the Government put economical and industrial devel- 
opment in the forefront of their Irish policy, and reso- 
lutely refused to permit any great contentious measure 
to take precedence of it, they would be taking the 
course which would be most beneficial to the country.' 
The centenary of the Rebellion of 1798 was cele- 
brated that year in many parts of Ireland, and the 
demonstrations that took place in connection with it 
were in curious contrast with the better understanding 
among Irish politicians of different parties. 

'It is to be hoped,' wrote Lecky, in August 1898, 1 
' that the spirit that is now appearing in contemporary 
Irish pohtics may be gradually extended to the judg- 
ments of the past. Remote Irish history has long 
been treated by many eminent scholars with an admi- 
rable research and impartiality. . . Is it too much to 
expect that a younger generation of Irish scholars will 
make a serious effort to take the more contentious 
periods of Irish history out of the hands of mere dema- 
gogues and partisans ? The commemorations of 1798 
are, it is to be hoped, now nearly over. A large sec- 
tion of the Irish people have done their best to glorify 
a rebellion which was directed against Grattan's 
Parliament, which led to the abolition of that Parlia- 



'A short article on 'Irish Tendencies,' written for the first 
number of a new issue of the Dublin Daily Express. 



ENGLAND AND GERMANY 367 

ment, and which planted in Ireland hatred that has 
been the chief obstacle to all rational self-government. 
The politicians have had their say. Let us trust that 
another generation of Irishmen may now arise who 
will treat history in a different spirit; who will recog- 
nise that the first duty of an historian is to tell the 
simple truth, and to the best of his ability, and as in 
the sight of God, to graduate honestly the degrees of 
praise and blame. Such men will soon learn that the 
falsest of all traitors are those whose statements in 
themselves are mainly true, but who make it their 
business to pick out of the annals of the past the mis- 
deeds of one side, and to conceal the misdeeds of 
the other, and in the interests of a party or a creed 
habitually to suppress palliations on one side and 
provocations on the other.' 

Lecky was unable to do much literary work during 
the session. He wrote, however, in the course of the 
year an introduction to Carlyle's ' French Revolution ' 
for an American publication, 'A Series of the World's 
Great Books,' and he reviewed in the Spectator 'Mr. 
Gregory's Letter Box/ by Lady Gregory; the 'Life of 
Parnell/ and the 'Memorials of the Earl of Selborne' 
(Part 2). Editors frequently asked him to give his 
views on modern politics, and he was persuaded to 
write for a German paper, the Gegenwart, on the alien- 
ation between England and Germany; and for the 
London Review on the relations of the United States 
with other Powers. 1 Lecky said that he did not 
believe that there was at that time any antagonism 
of interests between England and Germany, or any 
jealousy in England of Germany's trade and Colonial 
expansion. 



1 This article appeared also in the New York Independent, 
July 7, 1898. 



368 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

The policy of England was perfectly clear. It was 
to preserve the strictest neutrality in European quar- 
rels, to look upon the maintenance of peace as our 
supreme European interest, and to avoid entangling 
alliances. Unless Germany were to enter upon a 
course of gross aggression, German statesmen knew 
that they had nothing to fear from England. After 
the war of 1870 there was a large party in England 
who looked upon the increased influence of Germany 
as certain to lead to a higher level of international 
morals, to the growth of a more pacific, progressive, 
and enlightened spirit in European politics — but this 
hope had been disappointed, and the malevolent tone 
of some leading German papers could not but have 
in the long run a considerable influence on English 
opinion. He believed, however, that there were many 
Germans as well as English who deplored the deepen- 
ing chasm of feeling that was dividing two great nations 
which had naturally many common bonds of sympathy 
and interest and no real ground of serious antagonism. 

On the other hand, he hailed the marked improve- 
ment which had recently taken place in the relations 
of the two great branches of the English-speaking 
race. 'Peace and the open door/ he wrote, 'are the 
two great real interests of the Anglo-Saxon race, and 
they are most likely to be attained by common under- 
standings and common action.' Referring to the war 
with Spain, he thought it was 'at least likely to have 
taught America a lesson which she had long neglected. 
It is that war is not a thing that can be extemporised, and 
that no nation, however great, is really secure which 
is not prepared to defend herself both on land and sea 
in the first weeks after hostilities have been declared.' 

During the summer, at Vosbergen, he wrote great 
part of the introduction to the cabinet edition of his 



INTRODUCTION TO THE 'DEMOCRACY 7 369 

'Democracy and Liberty/ in which he was anxious 
to give an impartial appreciation of Mr. Gladstone. 
He now enjoyed more than ever the freedom and 
quiet of his summer retreat. While his wife went 
to the coronation of the young Queen at Amsterdam, 
he wrote from Vosbergen, 'All goes on perfectly here 
— delicious weather — delicious quiet and work, and 
the village fete was very pretty and orderly.' 

They returned to England at the end of October. 

(To Judge Gowan.) The Athenaeum: November 9, 
1898. — ' My dear Judge, — I must thank you very 
much for your kind letter, for the book, and for the 
paper giving in very concise form the many labours 
and honours of your long and most useful life. I am 
much interested by what you say about America. 
Here I think we were most struck by the skill and 
resolution with which on the American side the war 
was conducted, and by the humanity and self-restraint 
shown by American public opinion, and we certainly 
desire very strongly a good feeling between the two 
great branches of our race. I think these feelings have 
dominated over all others, though the triumph of 
Tammany at New York and the ascendancy of the 
Bryan party in both the Western and Southern States 
are ominous for the future. We have been spending 
the late summer and autumn in Holland, and I have 
been very busy writing a long Introduction to a cab- 
inet edition of my ' Democracy ' which will, I hope, 
appear in the beginning of January. It contains 
among other things a somewhat elaborate review of 
the career of Gladstone, which will, I fear, somewhat 
clash with the language of extravagant and unqualified 
eulogy which has of late been general. A book is 
just coming out which throws a good deal of light on 
the significance of the later part of his life — the biog- 
raphy of Parnell, showing beyond all doubt how com- 
pletely he [Parnell] was the agent of the Fenians and 
25 



370 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

actuated in his policy by an intense hatred of Great 
Britain. I hope the fear of war is now over, but Eng- 
land is certainly in no Quaker mood, and I never 
remember a time when a great war would have been 
more readily accepted. One advantage is that for 
the future it will be understood on the Continent that 
we are not squeezable ad infinitum. Another is that 
the expectation of war has greatly helped on the 
machinery for our Army and Navy. Still I own that 
I should be glad if the velvet glove was a little more 
used by our newspapers, some of which have been in 
no small degree arrogant and provocative. I suppose 
we shall meet at Westminster at the end of January. 
It is always interesting, but on the whole I do not 
look forward to it, and during the six months the House 
is sitting I find literary work almost absolutely impos- 
sible. I hope our Local Government Bill will not do 
much harm; that is all I can say.' 

Though the Fashoda incident 1 produced no disas- 
trous results, other clouds appeared on the horizon. 
The distant rumblings of the gathering storm in South 
Africa began to be disquieting, but no one at that time 
thought that patience, tact, and common-sense could 
not avert so great a calamity as a war between the 
two white races. 



1 The reader may be re- against the occupation of 

minded that in 1896 Captain Fashoda, and difficult negotia- 

Marchand had been sent by tions between the two Govern- 

the French Government on a ments ensued. The question 

mission to extend French influ- was settled early in November 

ence in the Valley of the Nile. 1898 by the French Govern- 

He reached Fashoda in July ment agreeing to evacuate 

1898, at the very time when Fashoda, and a subsequent 

Lord Kitchener had recon- delimitation took place which 

quered the Soudan. The gave France commercial ac- 

British Government protested cess to the Nile. 



ALEXANDRA COLLEGE 371 

Lecky spent the end of the year and the beginning of 
the next with his wife at Cannes, happy to escape for 
a short time from the gloom of a London winter and 
enjoy the sun by the blue Mediterranean. They after- 
wards went to Dublin for some social functions. 
Among the Irish institutions Lecky was interested 
in was Alexandra College, which, under the able direc- 
tion of its distinguished lady principal, Miss White, 
holds a worthy place beside the Women's Colleges 
in England. During his stay in Dublin an important 
meeting was held to further its enlargement. The 
Archbishop of Dublin presided, and the Lord Lieu- 
tenant, the Vice-Warden Dr. Bernard, Lord Justice 
Fitzgibbon, and Lecky were among the speakers. 
Lecky insisted on the great importance of the higher 
education of women, as the competitions of life had 
become much more acute, the standard of requirements 
had been greatly raised, and the number of women who 
had to fight the hard battle of life had probably in- 
creased; and he advocated the policy of the open door 
at the Universities, a policy which Trinity College as 
a teaching University has since been the first to adopt. 

Speaking in the same place the following year, at 
the opening ceremony of the new buildings, he dwelt 
on the value of the higher education of women in cor- 
recting the desultoriness of modern life. Men, as well 
as women, would benefit by it, for it was a great mis- 
fortune when, as in some countries, the intellectual 
life of men was almost wholly severed from the lives 
of women. They would never have a sound, moral, 
active, intellectual life among men where the women 
with whom they habitually lived took no interest in 
their pursuits and were habitually frivolous, credu- 
lous, and intellectually unsympathetic. 

In the beginning of January 1899, Lecky's new 



372 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

edition of the 'Democracy and Liberty' came out. 
He had carefully revised it, as he did all his books 
before he gave them a stereotyped form — ' correct- 
ing/ as he said in the Introduction, 'such inaccuracies 
as I have been able to discover and . . . introducing 
into the text or notes a few lines relating to contro- 
versies which were pending at the time of its original 
publication, and mentioning salient facts which have 
since occurred and which had a direct and important 
bearing on the subjects I have treated.' He pointed 
out how in many respects his predictions had been 
fulfilled, but the most important part of the Introduc- 
tion was his estimate of the character and career of 
Mr. Gladstone. This attracted a great deal of atten- 
tion and was widely commented on; with admiration 
by some, with disapproval by others. If Lecky ex- 
pressed strong views about some episodes in Mr. Glad- 
stone's political career, and especially his Home Rule 
policy, no one could have spoken with greater appre- 
ciation of his eloquence, of his debating powers, of his 
financial skill, of the readiness and versatility of his 
mind, of his lifelong hatred of acts of cruelty and 
wrong, of his charm in private life. ' . . . the elabo- 
rate character of Gladstone,' wrote Sir Mountstuart 
Grant-Duff in his ' Diary,' ' seems to me very much the 
best estimate of his merits and defects which has 
appeared.' 

Very soon after the opening of Parliament a debate 
took place on the distress in the West of Ireland. The 
remedy suggested from the Nationalist side was the 
enlargement of the holdings, by parcelling out grazing- 
lands among them and conferring on the Congested 
Districts Board compulsory powers to acquire these. 
Lecky was strongly opposed to this plan. He had 
studied for a long time past the economic conditions 



DISTRESS IN THE WEST OF IRELAND 373 

of the country, and he expressed the conviction that 
such a policy would be fatal to Ireland's prosperity. 
The conditions of nature — the Atlantic rain, the 
poverty of the soil — the bad farming, the tendency 
largely to subdivide holdings were, in Lecky's eyes, 
so many reasons for not stereotyping on the soil the 
present owners of land in the poorer districts of Con- 
naught. Something, but not much, might be done 
towards enlarging their holdings; but he thought any 
attempt to break up the richer grazing-land would 
be one of the worst things that could happen. The 
first and most vital industry is the cattle trade. Owing 
to its natural conditions Ireland must be a pastoral 
country. It can only be by keeping up that pasture 
in a flourishing condition that any real prosperity can 
come. An attack upon the graziers and the cattle 
trade, coupled with a revival of the land agitation 
which inevitably drives immense masses of capital 
out of the country, must be most disastrous. There 
was no need to confer compulsory powers of purchase 
on the Congested Districts Board, as they did not 
require them. The Government had just increased 
the resources of the Board by a considerable grant, 
and one of the measures of the session was the estab- 
lishment of the long-promised Department of Agri- 
culture and Technical Education which was intended 
to raise the level of agriculture and to encourage and 
assist industries. Mr. Horace Plunkett took an im- 
portant part in the debate, and as the Nationalists 
attempted to disparage his work, Lecky took the 
opportunity of saying 'that by turning the minds of 
the people of a great part of Ireland in a practical 
direction, and by showing how by patient work they 
can improve the economical conditions of Ireland and 
so raise it to a higher level of civilisation, Mr. Plunkett 



374 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

had done more than any other non-official member 
for the benefit of his country.' 

The question of the Old Age Pensions had now- 
acquired great prominence. It had been brought 
forward at the elections, and a pension scheme on a 
moderate scale had been strongly advocated by Mr. 
Chamberlain. The Government proposal to appoint 
a fresh Committee gave rise to a debate in which Lecky, 
in a forcible speech, expressed his views. He thought 
that after two singularly able Commissions had been 
for months investigating the matter and had come to 
the conclusion that they could not discover any scheme 
of Old Age Pensions which would not bring the most 
grave and serious disadvantages, the Government 
should have dropped the question. He showed all 
the dangers of such a scheme involving a huge expendi- 
ture which under certain circumstances the country 
might find it difficult to meet, and 'leading to the 
gravest indirect and unsuspected consequences.' The 
result of his speech was that he was asked to be on the 
Committee, to which he somewhat reluctantly con- 
sented. His further investigation of the matter and 
the evidence brought before the Committee confirmed 
him in his views, and he finally wrote a report giving 
his reasons for dissenting from the majority of the 
Committee who recommended a large pension scheme. 
It was not from any want of sympathy with those 
who were destitute in old age that Lecky opposed it; 
on the contrary, he was most compassionate towards 
every form of human suffering, but apart from the 
innumerable existing agencies, he thought a reform 
of the Poor Law would be the best remedy, without 
entailing the economic and political evils of a State 
pension scheme. 

At the end of the session he wrote to Mr. Booth: 



IRISH LITERARY THEATRE 375 

' We had a very quiet, not to say dull, session, and 
the only two Irish Bills — that increasing the revenue 
of the Congested Districts Board, and that setting up 
a good system of technical and agricultural education, 
were both useful and not much contested. I had, 
however, a good deal of special work on the Old Age 
Pension Committee. To my mind the Old Age Pen- 
sion project is one of the most dangerous of all forms 
of State socialism, and many members of our party 
and some of our Front Bench are committed to it. 
... I am afraid we shall have a good deal of trouble 
on this matter and that the Unionist party may com- 
mit itself to a policy which is sure to lead to great 
corruption and increase of taxation. However, I am 
pretty sure that Hicks Beach is strongly against this 
policy.' 

In the autumn of that ^ear Lecky wrote, at the 
request of the editor of thjl Forum, an article on Old 
Age Pensions, which appe/red in the February num- 
ber, 1900, of that Review .1 

He had now become interested in a fresh Irish enter- 
prise, a National Theatrj. It had been started in 
1898 by a small group of/Irish literary people, one of 
whom was Lady Gregoty" — a friend of his — who 
enlisted his sympathy in/the movement. He assisted 
in guaranteeing the exposes and in getting a clause 
inserted in the Local (Government Bill which made 
it practicable for amapurs to act in Dublin. By 
the regulations, hithert<jin force, it was illegal to give 
performances for monef in any building except the 
two licensed Dublin thatres, and these could only be 
secured on prohibitive jerms. Lecky had been much 
struck with an Irish lay, the 'Countess Kathleen/ 
written by the Irish pet, Mr. Yeats, and in a letter 



Published in his listorical and Political Essays. 



376 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

to the editor of the Dublin Daily Express, apologising 
for not being able to attend the dinner given to the 
promoters of the theatre, he wrote: 

May 10, 1899. — ' May I take this opportunity to 
say with what deep pleasure I have learned the success 
of Mr. Yeats' very remarkable play, and with what 
sincere sympathy I have been following the work of 
the school of brilliant young Irish writers to which he 
belongs ? It is not often that we have such a genuine 
or such a distinctive literary movement in Ireland, 
and the interest it is exciting seems to me one of the 
best signs in contemporary Irish life. These writers 
have already done good work, and I trust they may 
have a long and noble future before them.' 

Unfortunately in Ireland it is rare for any movement 
to keep clear of politics. When Queen Victoria paid 
her last visit to Ireland some members of the Irish 
Literary Theatre protested against an address of wel- 
come, and Lecky in consequence withdrew his name 
from the list of patrons. 

He had now got into the habit of going at the .end 
of the session for a few weeks to Scotland before settling 
down in Holland for the remainder of the summer. He 
went this time to Oban, spending nearly every day 
either on the water or in long and beautiful mountain 
drives in the Glencoe country. 

' Among other excursions, he wrote to his step- 
mother, ' I went on a lovely day — the sea studded 
with divers and in some places with sea anemones — ■ 
to Staff a and to Iona, which [ had never before seen 
and which is full, to me, of very interesting historical 
recollections chiefly connected with St. Columba. 
The Dean of Salisbury and lis wife — who are old 
friends of mine — are here, and between pleasant 



'THE MAP OP LIFE' 377 

people, lovely drives, and quite perfect weather, time 
has gone very quickly and I feel quite a different being 
from what I was in London.' 

In the summer, at Vosbergen, he finished the 'Map 
of Life.' 

(To Mr. Booth.) Vosbergen: September 19, 1899. — 
. . . 'My own book is on the Conduct of Life, but that 
title being taken by Emerson I have had to choose 
another. You will no doubt be struck with the nov- 
elty of the subject. However, like so many others in 
every generation, I have succeeded in persuading my- 
self that I have something to say about it — whether 
others will think the same I do not know. It is largely 
based on little notes I have been making during many 
years, and will be about the length of half of one of 
the volumes of the " Democracy." I am to-day 
sending off the last corrected proof-sheet (the table of 
contents) and hope it may come out early in October, 
but America (which insists that books in order to 
have copyright must be printed there and appear on 
the same day in both countries) may perhaps cause 
some delay. 

' I much doubt whether I shall write anything more 
of importance. I suppose we are in for a horrid war 
with the Transvaal; I doubt whether it could have 
been avoided — ■ and the grievances (if somewhat exag- 
gerated) are real, but it can hardly fail to have very 
mischievous effects in the relation of races through 
all South Africa, and I at least feel it impossible to 
have any enthusiasm for it. I think ... at earlier 
stages a rather more conciliatory tone over here might 
have done something, but when people mix their 
politics with their religion and believe (as I believe 
Kruger sincerely does) that they are under Divine 
inspiration, they are very difficult to deal with. We 
must stop here till the end of the month and shall 
probably be in London early in October, perhaps 



378 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

taking a short flight to the South before Parliament 
meets in February.' 

The 'Map of Life' came out in October, and it 
became at once very popular, a two-thousand edition 
being sold out in a week. A book that treats of the 
many phases of life and varieties of character, that 
contains the observations and experiences of one who 
had lived in close contact with the world and who had 
always kept up a high standard for himself, could not 
fail to be attractive to thoughtful minds. The thread 
that runs all through the book is that man comes 
into the world with a free will, and that though it 
is more limited than he usually imagines, he can, by 
a judicious and continuous exercise of it, to a certain 
extent form his character and direct his life. 'The 
natural power of the will in different men differs greatly, 
but there is no part of our nature which is more 
strengthened by exercise or more weakened by dis- 
use' (p. 234). 

The book brought him many letters from those who 
had derived instruction, pleasure, or comfort from it. 
To Mr. Booth, who had pronounced himself to be more 
of a deter minist, he wrote: 

' I do not think I am insensible to the physiological 
side of morals, and if you will look at the last page or 
two of the introductory chapter of my " History of 
Morals," you will find that I long ago predicted as 
one of the achievements of the future a medical treat- 
ment of morals. At the same time, I have an inex- 
pugnable belief that the physiological generation or 
strengthening of tendencies does not explain all, and 
that there is an independent will which, with greater 
or less strength, and in the face of greater or less 
strength of opposition, can resist tendencies and do 
something to mould life.' 



SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 379 

Among the letters he received, there was one from 
an American correspondent who wrote: 

' It is to me one of the most suggestive and helpful 
books which it has ever been my good fortune to read. 
I called the attention of our distinguished young Gov- 
ernor, Theodore Roosevelt, to the book some time ago, 
and you may therefore imagine with what pleasure I 
notice that in his Annual Message he quoted from it 
with approval and aptness. ... I daresay that 
Governor Roosevelt can claim to be the first public 
official who has quoted from your book.' 

The Provost of Trinity College, Dr. Salmon, wrote 
in his own characteristic way that if he had not given 
up preaching in chapel he would have found in hV 
'subjects for sermons for a long time to come, but in 
this literary age, when we address the eye so much 
more than the ear, a lay preacher can command the 
attention of a larger audience than any clergyman can 
hope to influence.' 

The 'Map of Life' was translated into Hungarian, 
Russian, parts of it into German, and a Gujarati trans- 
lation was proposed. 

The first Peace Conference had met that summer at 
The Hague with all the glamour of a new departure in 
the history of human progress, but it did not prevent 
war breaking out immediately after. The relations 
between England and the Transvaal had become more 
and more strained. The Bloemfontein Conference had 
failed, and subsequent negotiations had been unsuc- 
cessful. England began to show that she was ready 
to enforce her demands — the Boers began to mass 
themselves on their borders. Early in October the 
Reserve was called out, and this was at once followed 
by the unfortunate Boer ultimatum. War was now 
inevitable. In the middle of October, Parliament was 



380 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

summoned to provide for the necessary expenditure 
which had been or might be caused by events in South 
Africa. If Lecky had had any doubts beforehand as 
to a war being justifiable, once it was declared he gave 
his country a whole-hearted support, and he thought 
it was the duty of every British subject to stand loyally 
by her. England had at that time a good deal alien- 
ated the sympathy of other nations. There were vari- 
ous reasons for this, one being undoubtedly the natural 
inclination to side with the smaller and weaker nation 
in her conflict with the big and powerful one — for 
though the Boers had successes at first, it was certain 
that they would ultimately be overwhelmed by num- 
bers and superior strategy. In the course of the winter 
Lecky was asked by an American syndicate to write 
his views on the merits of the war. In America opinion 
was much divided. Among the intelligent and edu- 
cated in general there was a firm conviction — as an 
American friend wrote to him — that England was 
fighting the battle of civilisation. The Irish element 
was hostile to England and the German largely so. 
The masses did not know or care much, but were 
inclined to be on the side of the Republican Boers 
fighting for independence. A judicial exposition of the 
situation was therefore much wanted, and Lecky wrote 
a few pages under the heading of 'Moral Aspects of 
the South African War.' The article appeared in the 
Daily News as well as in America. 

No one wishes to stir up the embers of that unhappy 
strife and rehearse the controversy — except when 
required for historical purposes — and Lecky's views 
may be summarised in a few words. It was impos- 
sible, he thought, that a British Government could 
permanently ignore the state of subjection and inferi- 
ority to which a great body of British subjects at 



VIEWS ON THE WAR 381 

Johannesburg had been reduced. He thought the 
best solution would have been if the Transvaal Gov- 
ernment had agreed to Mr. Chamberlain's proposal 
to convert Johannesburg into a distinct municipality, 
or — when that was rejected — if they had accepted 
the franchise proposals of the Government which would 
have limited the Uitlander representation to a fourth 
or even a fifth part of the Volksraad, with a full and 
formal guarantee of the independence of the Trans- 
vaal. When all real reform was refused, war became 
unavoidable. 

The following passage, written amidst the heated 
passions of the hour, may be read with interest by the 
light of present events: 

'The determination of the country to carry it [the 
war] to a decisive victory is unquestionable, and the 
Government have declared that their two ends are 
the equality of the white races in South Africa and a 
substantial security that no renewal of a war like the 
present can occur. Beyond this it seems to me at pres- 
ent most unwise to go, and the final pacification of 
the Transvaal is a task which must tax the highest 
resources of statesmanship. On the whole, the most 
intelligent English politicians believe that it may be 
accomplished. They have great faith in political 
freedom and good administration. They believe that 
when the Dutch population in the Transvaal find that 
they are left perfectly unmolested on their farms, 
that they have the fullest political equality with the 
English, and that they are governed far better, more 
wisely, and more honestly than in the past, the ill 
feeling between the two races will speedily settle down. 
They think that the present war will have taught 
them to respect each other, and that a progressive 
and enlightened government will ultimately prove 
stronger than one which was in extreme opposition to 



382 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

all the best tendencies of the time. They hope to 
establish under the British flag a large system of local 
autonomy and create some sort of federation like that 
of Canada or Australia.' 

The Women's Liberal Unionist Association under- 
took that year to spread literature in foreign countries 
in order to explain the attitude of England, which was 
much misunderstood. They wanted a temperate 
statement of the English side of the struggle, and they 
thought Lecky's article admirable for the purpose. 
They asked him if he would allow them to republish 
it in pamphlet form, and to this he consented. Ten 
thousand copies were printed, and it was translated 
into French and German. 1 

To Mr. Booth, Lecky wrote on March 15, 1900: 
'It will require a great deal of careful statesmanship 
to patch up a settlement, and I hope the first stage, 
at least, will be left to Lord Roberts, who seems to 
me to combine strength with tact more than anyone 
I know, except Lord Dufferin.' 

Lecky had taken that winter a holiday in the South, 
and spent a few weeks in Florence, which he ' was 
glad to see again after a long interval. He found what 
he described as a singularly charming half English, 
half Italian society, and he saw a great deal of Profes- 
sor Villari, whose works he admired and who impressed 
him much with his ability. Lecky's early love for 
Italy had never flagged, and he liked reviving the old 
art memories and comparing them with new impres- 
sions. He was home for the meeting of Parliament 
on January 30. 



1 The article appeared in berg, on February 27, had 
the Daily News on March 10, marked the turning-point in 
1900. The events at Paarde- the war. 



FINANCIAL EELATIONS 383 

The debates were, of course, largely taken up with 
the South African war, but on March 22 the financial 
relations between England and Ireland were again 
brought before Parliament. In speaking on the sub- 
ject, Lecky said that Irish Unionists wished to keep 
the question clear of the obligation of Ireland to assist 
England in an Imperial contest, because the Union 
implied that in all such contests Ireland must go 
heartily with England, not only as she was then ' splen- 
didly doing, by the services of her soldiers, but also 
by her financial support.' He pointed out that 'from 
an Imperial point of view the strongest argument 
against Home Rule was that it would place the re- 
sources of Ireland in the hands of men who would 
be hostile to the interests of the Empire,' and no reason- 
able man can deny, he added, that if a separate Parlia- 
ment had existed in Ireland during the last few months, 
and if it had consisted mainly of the Nationalist mem- 
bers in the House of Commons, 'its whole influence 
would have been employed in thwarting and injuring 
England in the present war.' 

While he maintained, as he had always done, that 
Ireland was entitled to be treated in matters of finance 
as a distinct unit, he thought that the question of the 
financial relations had undergone a change since the sub- 
ject was last discussed. The Treasury returns showed 
that Irish taxation compared more favourably with the 
taxation of the Empire than it had done; more of it 
had been devoted to Irish purposes and less to Imperial 
purposes. The graduated income-tax was an advan- 
tage to the poorer country. Loans had been given 
to Ireland in greater proportion than to Great Britain; 
an additional yearly sum had been given to the Con- 
gested Districts Board, and a substantial grant, though 
he wished it had been a larger one, had been made for 



384 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the endowment of the new Agricultural and Technical 
Education Department. He concluded by saying that 
he believed the Irish grievance was a dwindling one 
and not now very serious — and that was very much 
the impression left by the debate. 

The next day he had to take up the defence of 
Trinity College in a debate on the Irish Catholic Uni- 
versity question. Trinity College had been accused 
of being narrow and exclusive and out of touch with 
Irish life. Lecky demonstrated that her policy had 
been the very reverse. Concession after concession had 
been made, and it was well known more would be made 
if Roman Catholics would only accept them. As for 
being out of touch with Irish life and literature, the 
answer was that they had a Professor of Irish, another 
professor who was the first living authority about the 
Brehon law, and that by far the larger proportion of 
those distinguished in Celtic literature had been through 
the University of Dublin. There was Bishop Reeves, 
one of the greatest Celtic scholars who had ever lived; 
Professor Stokes, who had written one of the best 
books on Celtic ecclesiastical history; there was Dr. 
Tocld, Bishop Graves, and many others. 

Lecky wrote that winter an article on Dean Milman 1 
for the Edinburgh Review, and he soon after began 
revising and rewriting his ' Leaders of Public Opinion.' 
It has been shown that he had always been in the habit 
of revising his books with the greatest care. In the 
case of his ' Leaders ' so many fresh sources of knowledge 
had become accessible since the book had been out of 
print, that it was a question of largely rewriting it, 
and to this he now devoted most of his spare time. 

In the month of April 1900 Queen Victoria paid her 



1 It has been included in the Historical and Political Essays. 



PARLIAMENTARY DUTIES 385 

memorable visit to Ireland. Lecky and his wife were 
there during the Easter holidays, chiefly staying under 
the hospitable roof of the Chief Secretary Mr. Gerald 
Balfour, and Lady Betty Balfour. During the day 
the Queen drove about performing various gracious 
acts ; in the evening she had small parties at the Vice- 
Regal Lodge, to which all those who were representa- 
tive of Irish life and interests were invited. 

The Queen's stay was an entire success. She had 
had a warm reception, and when she left, in radiant 
sunshine, on April 26, thousands of her loyal Irish 
subjects went to see the last of her. Far from the 
crowd on Killiney Hill, Lecky and his wife saw the 
Royal yacht, escorted by the Channel Fleet, steam 
away in the distance, till it finally disappeared out 
of sight, and the Queen's visit was nothing more than 
an interesting memory, destined perhaps to exercise 
some permanent influence. 

Lecky returned that day to England for his Parlia- 
mentary duties. During the remainder of the session 
he took part in the debates on various Irish questions, 
but he took no less interest in other legislation, and he 
urged the Government — in a letter to the Times — 
to 'avoid one lamentable waste of legislative power' 
by not abandoning useful measures such as the Money- 
lending Bill and the Youthful Offenders Bill, simply 
because they contained contentious clauses which could 
easily be dropped and brought in as separate Bills 
in the ensuing session. The war, of course, was largely 
discussed. ' Chamberlain's speech last night/ he wrote 
on May 15, 'was lucid, lofty, statesmanlike, and ad- 
mirably conciliatory.' By the end of July he always ' 
felt very fagged, and this time he took a short trip to 
Kerry. London had been very hot and he enjoyed 
the relative freshness of lakes and mountains. He 
26 



386 WILLIAM EDWAKD HAKTPOLE LECKY 

stayed at Killarney, made the excursion of the lakes 
in lovely weather, 'the colours enchantingly beau- 
tiful,' he wrote, 'and it is pleasant again feeling in a 
normal temperature and regaining the keenness of life.' 
He went on to Lake Carragh and Parknasilla, and was 
most enthusiastic about both places. 'I cannot tell 
you/ he wrote from Parknasilla, 'what a lovely place 
this is when the sun is out to give life to the landscape, 
and when the beautiful shadows are coursing over the 
mountains.' He always found that being in good air 
had a rejuvenating effect, though on this occasion he 
feared it was hardly shown by his personal appearance, 
judging by a speech which a Glengariffe boatman made 
to him. ' Well, sir, you have been a grand man in your 
day — I suppose that you may be now about eighty?' 
He was then sixty-two, and the remark was amusing 
from the fact that his old friends always maintained 
that he never seemed to change. His fair hair was 
only slightly tinged with grey, and he kept his youth- 
ful looks till his last illness. 

The political atmosphere was very unsettled in the 
summer of 1900 : there were rumours of an approaching 
dissolution and there was unfortunately disunion in 
the Irish Unionist camp. The so-called killing-Home- 
Rule-with-kindness policy which had been pursued by 
the Government had caused much dissatisfaction. 
Moreover, the appointment of a former Nationalist as 
secretary to the new Agricultural and Technical De- 
partment had raised a formidable opposition against 
its Vice-President, Mr. Horace Plunkett, although the 
appointment was wholly unpolitical. Mr. Gill had been 
selected as the person best qualified for the post; he 
was not then taking any part in politics, and he stated 
that he did not defend the morality of the Plan of 
Campaign. The Unionist Alliance had drawn up a 



GENERAL ELECTION 387 

strong indictment against the Government, and when 
the dissolution came Mr. Horace Plunkett's election 
was opposed by another Unionist, as well as by a 
Nationalist candidate. Lecky greatly deplored the 
uncompromising attitude adopted by his Unionist fel- 
low-countrymen, and thought it fatal to the best 
interests of Ireland. He expressed this in a letter to 
Mr. Plunkett, and it was read at the last meeting before 
the election: 

'In other parts of the Empire/ he concluded, 'the 
long years of disinterested labour you have spent in 
developing the resources of your country and creating 
a better feeling among its people would have given you 
the support of all parties. In Ireland this is not the 
case, but I trust there is at least sufficient gratitude 
or public spirit in your constituency to secure your 
majority and to prevent what, in my judgment, would 
be nothing short of a national disgrace.' 

Strong influence, through the press and otherwise, 
was brought to bear against Mr. Horace Plunkett's 
election. The Unionist votes were split. Fifteen 
hundred went to his opponent, and South Dublin was 
lost to the Unionists. 

Another interesting election which was hotly con- 
tested was the Galway one, but this ended in a Union- 
ist triumph. Mr. Martin Morris 1 (eldest son of Lord 
Morris) was the first Unionist returned for the place 
within the last twenty years. The priests had gone 
against him by order of the bishop, but his popularity 
had won the fishermen of the Claddagh, who voted 
solid for him. The town was still seething with the 
excitement of the election, when Mr. Lecky and his 
wife arrived there on a visit to Lord and Lady Morris, 



1 Now Lord Killanin. 



388 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

and enthusiastic fisherwomen surrounded the coach 
with which Lord Morris had come to fetch his guests. 
The drive to Spiddal, the family place, took them for 
thirteen miles over very wild, stony country with 
scarcely a vestige of human life or cultivation, but 
with a fine view of Galway Bay all along the road. 
The house overlooks the sea and the mountains of 
Clare beyond, a river dashes through the grounds, 
and amidst all the refinements of culture and civilisa- 
tion the place seemed to have kept some of the wild 
character of the surrounding scenery, softened by the 
vegetation of a mild climate, the arbutus and myrtle. 
Lord Morris died the following year. He was, said 
Lecky, 'one of the shrewdest, one of the kindest, one 
of the most genial, as well as the wittiest of our Irish 
judges; a man who was the delight of every circle 
in which he moved, and who will long live in the 
memory of a host of friends.' 1 

Lecky and his colleague had been re-elected without 
opposition, in accordance with the traditions of Dublin 
University. As College was not in term, there were no 
undergraduates and all went off very quietly. The 
election took place in the examination hall on October 
2, and the College expressed its entire confidence in 
both its members. Lecky was proposed by Dr. Gray 
in most appreciative words, expressing the great sat- 
isfaction of his constituents at the part he had taken 
in Parliament and at the weight and influence he had 
acquired. 'No one could have been more watchful of 
the interests of his constituents. He was always on 
the spot, always ready to help, always accessible to 
every Trinity College man, graduate or undergraduate, 
and the younger the graduate the greater pleasure he 



1 At the dinner given to Lord Roberts, July 8, 1902. 



DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ELECTION 389 

had in giving assistance.' Both his proposer and his 
seconder, Dr. Charles Ball, pronounced him to be 'an 
ideal member.' Lecky in returning thanks to the 
electors gave a short survey of his attitude on various 
questions. He deprecated the opposition of Irish 
Unionists to the Government. 

' When they knew,' he said, ' that the only alternative 
was a Government in which the Home Rule party must 
have a great influence, and that even greatly to weaken 
the Government might have the effect of throwing 
the balance of power into Home Rule hands, it seemed 
to him that it would be wise to take a somewhat more 
matrimonial view of politics, to accept their partner 
for better or for worse, and to practise that excellent 
matrimonial precept of dwelling more on merits than 
on defects.' 

And certainly those merits were not inconsiderable, 
as he proceeded to show. 



CHAPTER XV 

1900-1903. 

College Historical Society — Autumn Session — Death of Queen 
Victoria — Her Moral Influence — Last Revision of the 
' Leaders of Public Opinion ' — Review of ' Mr. Childers' 
Life ' — Compulsory Purchase — Serious Illness — Harro- 
gate — Vosbergen — Royal Commission on Irish Univer- 
sity Education — British Academy — Torquay — Dublin 
— Resignation of Seat in Parliament — Requisition from 
Trinity College — Postponement of Resignation — The 
Coronation — The Order of Merit — Dinner to Lord Rob- 
erts — Last Speech — Nauheim — Autumn Session — Final 
Resignation of Seat — Publication of the Revised and En- 
larged Edition of the ' Leaders of Public Opinion ' — On 
Arbitration — On an English-speaking Alliance — Italian 
Lakes — Land Bill of 1903 — Fiscal Question — Sir Henry 
Wrixon — Crowborough — Mount Browne — Increasing 
Ill-health — The End — St. Patrick's Cathedral — Statue 
in Trinity College — Tribute from Lord Rathmore. 

Lecky had promised to attend the opening meeting 
of the Historical Society, and when that body met on 
November 7 he found himself once more with two old 
friends and fellow gold-medallists — the Lord Chancel- 
lor Lord Ashbourne, and Lord Justice Fitzgibbon. 
The subject for discussion was Trinity College in the 
nineteenth century. Lecky said in the course of his 
speech that there was no other institution which was 
so closely connected with all that was best and most 
illustrious in Irish intellectual life. He trusted that 

390 



DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA 391 

its broad unsectarian basis would never be impaired, 
and that in spite of increasing difficulties Trinity 
College would always maintain its present high stand- 
ard. He showed how necessary it was in these days 
' for a University to cultivate a vigilant and reforming 
spirit, quick to avail itself of opportunities, keenly 
sensible of the needs and tendencies of the time.' He 
did 'not believe there ever had been a generation in 
which the work done by Fellows and Professors of 
this University counted for so much in the great 
fields of literature, science, and scholarship as in the 
present/ and he hoped it was also true that there never 
was a time when there was a better spirit and a higher 
tone among the students. 

The new Parliament met for a fortnight early in 
December in order to vote supplies for the South Afri- 
can war and for the operations in China. The retro- 
spect of the year was a melancholy one. 'I never 
remember a year/ wrote Lecky, ' in which general spec- 
ulation in England was so uniformly pessimistic — 
the golden age, as Mr. Bryce said, much further from 
us than fifty years ago.' 1 In other parts of the Empire 
the outlook was more hopeful. The Australian Colo- 
nies had been united into a Commonwealth, which was 
inaugurated with great rejoicings on January 1, 1901. 
It was the crowning event of a great reign. 

Queen Victoria's health had been giving anxiety for 
some time past. In the middle of January she became 
seriously ill, and on the evening of the 22nd she died. 
The universal outburst of sorrow at the sad news 
showed the hold she had over the affections of her 
people, and the grief for her loss was deepened by the 
regret that she should not have lived to see the end 



1 Commonplace book, December 31, 1900. 



392 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

of the war which had cast so deep a shadow over the 
last years of her life and of her prosperous reign. After 
an interval of sixty-four years, scarcely anyone remem- 
bered the mode of procedure on the accession of a new 
sovereign. The day after the Queen's death Lecky 
was summoned to a Council meeting at the Court, 
St. James's Palace. The King made a short impress- 
ive speech and took the oath. The Privy Council 
were sworn in collectively, and they each signed the 
Proclamation and kissed hands. Parliament met that 
day and the next for Peers and Commoners to be sworn 
in, and on the third day to receive the King's Mes- 
sage. A vote of condolence was moved and seconded 
in both Houses and they afterwards adjourned till 
February 14. Lecky attended the service in St. 
George's Chapel — an imposing ceremony — but no 
ceremonial pomp could add to the solemnity of such 
a funeral. Those who saw the procession pass be- 
tween silent and mourning crowds thought it the most 
impressive sight they had ever seen. 

Lecky was asked that winter to write about the 
moral influence Queen Victoria had exercised during 
her reign, and this he gladly did as he felt strongly 
how powerful that influence had been. The article 
appeared in the Pall Mall Magazine of April, and 
seemed to be much appreciated as a true picture of 
the Queen. 1 

During the winter of 1901 he finished revising and 
partly re-writing the ' Life of Grattan,' and in the 
spring he wrote a review of the 'Life of Mr. Childers' 
for the Spectator. The early part of the Parliamen- 
tary session was chiefly occupied with the South 



1 It has been republished among the Historical and Political 
Essays. 



COMPULSORY PURCHASE 393 

African war and the Estimates. Compulsory pur- 
chase for Ireland had now become a popular demand 
in Ulster, and the question was brought forward in 
the debates on the Address by a motion of Mr. 
Redmond, seconded by Mr. T. W. Russell. Lecky 
intended to have spoken on the subject, but, as 
frequently happened in the debates, the opportunity 
failed. 

His views may be shortly summed up. Such a 
scheme, involving an advance by the Treasury of 
from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty 
millions on the security of Irish landed property, 
seemed to him altogether outside the domain of prac- 
tical politics. The State could not be expected to 
incur the enormous financial risk of constituting itself 
for a long period the universal landlord and rent- 
collector in Ireland, in the face of an organisation 
whose methods of policy for more than thirty years 
had been open breach of contract and strike against 
rents. Compulsory purchase would not give pros- 
perity to Ireland, it would not put an end to agitation, 
and it would still further restrict the influence of those 
who were most attached to the Empire and who in 
innumerable cases were the chief agents of civilisa- 
tion in their respective districts and also the chief 
employers of labour. The whole rental of Ireland 
would be carried out of the country, and would drain 
Ireland of great part of its wealth, while the shock 
given to contracts and to the security of all property, 
by taking from the landlord his property contrary 
to his will, would be even more detrimental to the 
country. 

In the course of the session (March 13, 1901), in a 
debate on the Congested Districts Board, he strongly 
opposed a Nationalist Bill proposing among other 



394 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

things to make the Board more representative. It 
was the custom of Nationalists to decry Castle boards, 
but these boards, he said, consisted of men of great 
ability who dealt with Irish affairs in a highly impartial 
spirit, whose single aim was to improve the condition 
of the country, and he was sure they were far more 
representative of the best elements of Irish life than 
any elective body they were likely to have. 

The life of a private member of Parliament was 
not at that time a very interesting or exhilarating 
one. 

' We are having/ he wrote from the House of Com- 
mons to Mr. Rusden, the Australian historian, March 
18, 1901, 'a most dreary session of persistent Irish 
obstruction — skilfully carried out — involving divi- 
sions on nearly every item, and bringing with it very 
late nights and a general dislocation of the Parliamen- 
tary machine. It is curious how through the influ- 
ence of all this our House of Commons is losing its 
old character — how the private member is being 
turned into a mere voting-machine — how the power 
of the Cabinet is growing, and how, through the exces- 
sive prolongation of debates real and moderate criti- 
cism of Supply is becoming more and more difficult. 
I think some of our Ministers are getting very tired of 
their position and would gladly get out of it were there 
anyone who could take their places.' 

Lecky had not been feeling strong for some time, 
and in the spring he had an attack of influenza followed 
by dilatation of the heart. Though he got better at 
first, he now felt that he had 'a broken wing/ and he 
never quite recovered. As soon as he was well enough 
to move he went to Brighton, and he was able to go 
back to the House of Commons after the Easter holi- 
days. 



ILLNESS 395 

(To Mr. Booth.) House of Commons: May 23, 
1901. — . . . 'I have had rather a serious illness 
lately — an attack of what the doctor did not find out 
to be influenza, having acted as influenza apparently 
often does, lessening the action of my heart, involving 
three weeks in bed and two or three other weeks of 
complete suppression of work. My doctors say I am 
getting all right and may look forward to a complete 
cure, but at present I feel much like an octogenarian 
capable of only walking about half a mile, considering 
a flight of stairs a formidable undertaking, and much 
delighting in bath-chairs. I spent a fortnight under 
these conditions at Brighton, living a vegetable life, 
which much improved me, and I am returning there 
for a week during the Whitsuntide holidays, which 
begin to-morrow. I had to preside over a great dinner 
of the Irish graduates, who are making a presentation 
to Lord Roberts of a piece of plate, but owing to the 
continuance of the war this has been indefinitely post- 
poned. The only literary work I have lately published 
has been an article on the Queen in the Pall Mall 
Magazine of May. ... I hope now to get back to a 
little literary work, though I fear that I shall have for 
some considerable time to lead an invalid life, and 
not being able to walk is to me a great privation.' 

Parliamentary life did not now suit his health — 
indeed, it is questionable whether it ever did — and 
his doctor advised him to give it up; but there was 
hope at that time of his health improving, and he 
wished if possible to stay during that Parliament, 
meaning to resign his seat at the next general election, 
as he had always intended. Trinity College showed 
great concern and consideration, and expressed the 
earnest hope that he would take his Parliamentary 
duties lightly and do all he could for his restoration 
to health. He continued to attend as regularly as 
he could, and to give the same attention to all ques- 



396 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

tions in which his constituents were specially inter- 
ested. He always felt that one . could do indirectly 
and quietly some real good. The few times he still 
spoke during that session, whether it was on the case 
of Dr. Long 1 — who had been persecuted at Limerick 
for carrying on a Protestant medical mission — or 
in support of an amendment of the Lords on the equal- 
isation of Dublin rates, his arguments were always on 
the side of justice and moderation, and above party 
considerations. He endeavoured when he could to 
be a pacifying influence, but found it none too easy. 

He wrote at that time to Judge Gowan, who had 
made inquiries after his health: 

' We have had a dull and unsatisfactory session, but 
of course a great war, with its complicated finance and 
the many arrangements required by a new reign, 
account for much; systematic and very skilfully led 
obstruction from the Irish benches accounts for still 
more; and Ministers who have been in office for six 
years are a good deal worn out, and in the absence of 
any stimulating opposition are apt to become very 
apathetic. Before very long we shall have to revise 
our procedure, which is in many respects not only 
faulty but absurd, and now that the census shows 
that the population of Scotland for the first time 
exceeds that of Ireland, the fact that Ireland has 
thirty-one more members than Scotland cannot be 
long ignored. In the next session, however, our work 
is laid out — a large Education Bill — a Bill relating 



1 Lecky dissociated himself Dr. Long had been subjected, 

from Dr. Long's methods, for and he warned Irish members 

he did not, as he said, like that their attitude was fatal 

'the mixture of theology and to the objects Irish Catholics 

medicine/ but he protested had at heart, 
against the treatment to which 



HARROGATE 397 

to the London water-supply, and an Irish. Land Bill. 
Parliament as a working machine is steadily and 
rapidly declining, and under the present conditions of 
parliamentary life a very few contentious measures 
can be made to absorb a session.' 

Lecky once more wrote his views on the South 
African war, at the request of Dr. Munz, of the Neue 
Freie Presse, whom he had met at Vienna in 1896 
and who was anxious to have a letter from him which 
might be published in that paper. The war was then 
being fought to a finish, and Lecky deplored that 
peace could not have been made after the taking of 
Pretoria, since the result was then no longer doubt- 
ful. He said he thought the elections and the pro- 
ceedings of the Liberal party must have convinced 
foreigners of the absolute certainty that the English 
people meant to and could carry the war to a conclu- 
sion. The task of reconstruction would be an ex- 
tremely difficult one, but he was sanguine as to the 
effects of good government in the future, and of a 
liberal treatment of the Boers; and he repeated that 
he hoped that British and Boers would have learnt 
to respect each other, and that after a period of Crown 
Government federation would follow. 

He left London with his wife early in August for 
Harrogate, where he had been advised to do a cure. 
He found several friends, and the good air and waters 
were very beneficial to him. Lord Roberts happened 
to be there, and Lecky had more than one pleasant 
and interesting talk with him while they were both 
drinking the waters. 

To Mr. Booth he wrote from Harrogate that he would 
be sorry not to get through that Parliament, that 
T.C.D. was 'angelic as a constituency/ giving him 
the greatest freedom, and when Parliament was not 



398 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

sitting asking nothing from him except an occasional 
letter applying for a place for a constituent: 

'I don't mean,' he wrote, 'to do any original writ- 
ing, at least for a long time, but I hope to rewrite my 
" Leaders" up to the level of my present knowledge 
and matured judgment, and perhaps to be able in 
the course of time to republish in a somewhat extended 
as well as corrected form, a good many essays I have 
from time to time written. I think the Government 
were quite right in dropping the proposal for changing 
the transubstantiation declaration. It did no one 
any harm, and I have abundant evidence of the strong 
feeling in the country against tampering with it. The 
question of the children in the public-houses was the 
only one of the last measures in which I took much 
interest, though I have a general feeling against the 
increased meddling of Governments with adult, and 
especially female labour. We have, I think, gone too 
far in this direction.' 

The remainder of the summer was spent at Vos- 
bergen, where the restful life suited him exactly. 
Though he could not now take the same long walks 
over the downs as before, he regained strength by 
degrees and was able to write to his stepmother at 
the end of his stay in Holland. 

Amsterdam. — 'I think the very quiet life and the 
very good air of Vosbergen have done me great good. 
The marked increase in my walking power is an indis- 
putable sign/ and he added, 'I am always struck in 
Holland with the extreme politeness and courtesy of 
all classes, and this year it is specially admirable on 
account of the intense feeling about the South African 
war.' . . . 

Lecky always keenly appreciated any good work 
done for Ireland, and he had followed for some time 



THE UNIVERSITY QUESTION 399 

past with much interest and sympathy the historical 
studies of a friend of his, Mr. C. Litton Falkiner. 1 
On his return home he wrote to him : 

October 28, 1901. — 'I have only just returned to 
England from the Continent, which must be my apol- 
ogy for not having before thanked you for your most 
valuable paper on Phcenix Park. It is full of informa- 
tion which is new to me, and has interested me much. 
I am sincerely delighted that you are devoting your- 
self so steadily to Irish history, which is so seldom 
treated with real learning and impartiality. I fear it 
is rather a thankless task, but it is rendering a very 
genuine service to our country.' 

The Irish Roman Catholic University question was 
now coming more and more to the front. In March 
1901 a deputation from the senate of the Irish Royal 
University requested the Lord Lieutenant to appoint 
a Royal Commission to inquire into the working of 
the Royal University in relation to the educational 
needs of the country. A Royal Commission was sub- 
sequently appointed to inquire into Irish University 
education generally — leaving Trinity College, however, 
out of the terms of reference. Lecky gave evidence be- 
fore it on December 18, and he once more fully stated 
his views. His conclusion was that he did not believe 
that Ireland needed, or could bear without injury, 
another great establishment of mixed education. Ire- 
land being a poor country, most people were obliged 
as early as possible to earn their own livelihood and 
cared little about higher education for its own sake. 
It was therefore very difficult to keep up a high 



1 Author of Studies in Irish serious loss to Ireland as well 
History, and other works. His as to his friends, 
premature death has been a 



400 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

standard of University education, and a multiplicity 
of Universities was almost sure to lower the type. 
He did not see the advantage of setting up educa- 
tional institutions ostensibly unsectarian, but certain 
to become in their actual working intensely sectarian. 
He maintained the view he had expressed before, that 
the best way to satisfy the Roman Catholic demands 
was to give a substantial grant to University College, 
Stephen's Green. 

There had now been for some time a movement on 
foot for establishing an Academy of Literary Science. 
While the Royal Society represented Natural Science, 
there was no equivalent body in England to represent 
historical, philosophical, and philological studies. The 
want of this was not fully realised until an International 
Association, comprising two sections — natural science 
and literary science — was formed in 1899, and meet- 
ings of the chief scientific and literary academies of 
the world were organised by it. The first of these 
meetings was held at Paris in 1900, and the conspicu- 
ous absence of representatives of English literature 
was much remarked and regretted. When it was 
decided to hold the next international meeting in 
London in 1904, the necessity to provide for the 
deficiency was still more urgently felt. The Royal 
Society, after many deliberations, having found it 
undesirable to enlarge its scope, several representa- 
tive men combined in 1901 to consider the matter 
independently, and the result was the foundation of 
an academy for the promotion of historical, philosoph- 
ical, and philological studies. Belles lettres, as 
such — not forming part of scientific literature — were 
excluded from the programme. Lecky did not take 
part in the proceedings that led to the formation of 
the British Academy, but he was elected among the 



INVALID LIFE 401 

first Fellows of the new body. The Academy held 
its first meeting at the British Museum, on December 
17, 1901, and was incorporated by Royal Charter in 
the following year. 

Lecky shortened the winter by going with his wife 
to Torquay till the meeting of Parliament in January. 
He always thought Torquay a most attractive place, 
with much of the charm of the Riviera, and he enjoyed 
his quiet stay there. He was now working at the 
'Life of O'Connell/ and as usual doing a good deal of 
miscellaneous reading. There are few personal allu- 
sions in his commonplace books, but the year 1901 
closes with the words: 'My first year of invalid life.' 
Lord Dufferin died that winter and Lecky much 
deplored his loss. 'The death of Lord Dufferin/ he 
wrote to Mr. Rusden, 'removes, in my judgment, a 
really great man, and one specially needed in Ireland.' * 
Lord DurTerin had a true insight into Lecky's character. 
Speaking of Lecky, he once said 2 to the writer of these 
lines, ' I never saw so much gentleness combined with 
so much strength.' 

The early part of the session of 1902 was taken up 
with the debates on the new Procedure Rules, includ- 
ing increased penalties for disorder. 3 He felt, however, 



1 At the dinner given by was shown by an episode in 
the Irish graduates to Lord which a member used some 
Roberts, Lecky in his speech very unparliamentary lan- 
paid a tribute to Lord Duf- guage. It so happened that 
ferin, which has been quoted when the division bell rang 
by Sir Alfred Lyall in his for members to vote on the 
Life of the Marquis of Dufferin suspension of the delinquent, 
and Ava. some of them were receiving 

2 At Clandeboye, in October a deputation of lady grad- 
1897. uates who had come to pre- 

3 The necessity for these sent a petition to Parliament 

27 



402 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

more and more that his state of health made him unfit 
for Parliamentary life, and his doctors did not cease 
to urge that he should give it up. He was obliged to 
avoid late hours and the excitement of speaking, and 
he disliked extremely filling a place when he could no 
longer discharge all its duties. At Whitsuntide he 
expressed his wish to resign; but he received an urgent 
letter, signed by the Fellows of Trinity College, asking 
him not to do so, but rather to take a long leave of 
absence that might restore his health and enable him 
not, indeed, to resume the unremitting attendance 
that had been so detrimental to him, but at all events 
to interpose in debate when the interests of the Uni- 
versity required it. Lecky was much touched by the 
letter, but he explained that apart from late hours and 
speaking, which he had already had to give up that 
session, 'the many little duties, embarrassments, and 
perplexing and agitating circumstances that are in- 
separably connected with the life of an M.P.' were 
incompatible with the quiet life that was imperatively 
prescribed for him. As he wished, however, to suit 
the convenience of Trinity College, he would give up 
his intention for the present, though he felt that he 
could not go on for very long representing the Univer- 
sity. 

'It is generally felt in Trinity College,' wrote the 



in favour of women's suffrage. be exposed to be called such 

Lecky, on returning to the names. He said he thought 

deputation, explained the rea- that some of the qualities 

son of his temporary absence, women brought to legislation 

and turned the episode into were desirable, but that the 

an object-lesson, asking them emotional element was already 

how they would like a seat in sufficiently represented. 
Parliament, where they would 



THE CORONATION 403 

Dean of St. Patrick's (ex-Fellow of the College), 'that 
your retirement from the House of Commons would be 
a very serious matter for the University. ... I hope 
that you understand our sincere wish that you should 
continue to represent us, even though your health 
may not permit you to take part in 'all-night' sit- 
tings or even to attend all party divisions. What we 
are anxious to retain for ourselves is the influence of 
your name, and we feel it important, not only for our- 
selves but for University representation all over the 
kingdom, that a man of your eminence should repre- 
sent Dublin in the House of Commons. I know that 
it would be distasteful to you to retain your seat and 
not attend the House with regularity, but I beg of 
you to weigh our view of the case. You will do us a 
great service if you remain in the House,' 

and Lecky's correspondent added that this feeling was 
unanimous. 

The position, however, continued to be unpleasant, 
all the more because there were persistent rumours of 
his leaving the House of Gommons, and his place was 
being actively canvassed. 

The great event of the year was the coronation, which 
was to take place on June 26. The general wish that 
the war might come to an end before then was happily 
fulfilled, and nothing seemed likely to mar the public 
rejoicings till, on the afternoon of June 24, when all 
London had assumed a festive appearance, the start- 
ling news spread that the King was seriously ill and 
that everything was postponed. At the very moment 
when the eager anticipations of many months had 
reached their climax they were suddenly dashed to 
the ground and made place for universal consterna- 
tion and anxiety. The contrast was tragic and over-' 
whelming. 

' You may imagine,' wrote Lecky to a foreign rela- 



404 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

tion, 'the emotions of hope and fear we have gone 
through last week. The first days the best author- 
ities thought the chances much against the King, but 
the critical days are the first, second, and third, and 
these are happily over, and all accounts very encourag- 
ing. Indeed, people are even beginning to speculate 
over the time when the coronation may actually take 
place.' 

On the occasion of the coronation the King had 
instituted the Order of Merit, and Lecky was one of 
the twelve recipients. 

'Thank you so much,' he wrote to Mr. Booth, 'for 
your kind congratulations. My new feather will, I 
hope, at least have the advantage of stopping for the 
present a large amount of gossip about me which has 
of late been going on. It is quite true that I am very 
tired of Parliamentary life, for I find that a proper dis- 
charge of my duties is now quite beyond my powers, 
and I am obliged to restrict myself absolutely . to the 
afternoon sittings and to abstain from all the agita- 
tion of speaking. I wished to have given it up at 
Whitsuntide, but the whole body of my Fellows have 
sent me a petition not to do so, saying they do not 
wish me to attend with any regularity, but that it 
would be very injurious to the University if I gave it 
up. I am compromising the matter by pairing from 
after the Roberts dinner, and going to Nauheim. 
About next year I can make no promise, and at pres- 
ent let the matter drift. I hope T.C.D. may soon 
evolve some brilliant, youthful literary candidate who 
may take my place.' . . . 

The graduates of the Irish Universities had combined 
for some time past to give a dinner and a presentation 
of plate to Lord Roberts, and they had asked Lecky to 
be chairman of their Committee and to preside over 
the dinner. By Lord Roberts' desire it had been post- 



AUTUMN SESSION 405 

poned, as has been said, till the war was over, and the 
date was now fixed for July 8. Lecky was physically 
very unfit to undertake the task of presiding, but he 
was the last man to shirk a duty. It was a great occa- 
sion, as it was the first of the many dinners that were 
given to Lord Roberts, and a large number of dis- 
tinguished Irishmen assembled to do honour to him. 
When Lecky rose to speak, his pale, delicate face be- 
trayed how great the effort was, but his strength of 
will conquered and those who heard him felt he had 
never spoken better. 

Two days after he went to Nauheim. The corona- 
nation was fixed for August 9, and the investiture of 
the Order of Merit for the 8th, but the doctor would 
not allow Lecky to break his cure, 1 and he was unable 
for the same reason to be present at the dinner which 
the members of the Athenaeum gave in honour of the 
recipients of the Order. He had looked forward to 
some quiet weeks at Vosbergen after his cure, but 
unfortunately this plan was frustrated. His step- 
mother, Lady Carnwath, who was eighty-two, had 
been failing for some time past, and she was now in a 
precarious condition. Barely had he been two days 
in Holland when bad news determined him to return 
at once to England. She lingered on till October 16, 
when she died. To Lecky it meant the loss of one 
upon whom he had always looked as a mother, and 
the break-up of old associations was painful to him. 
Meanwhile Parliament met for an autumn session on 
the Education Bill, the chief measure of the year. 
Lecky supported it and thought it on the whole a 
fair compromise. He did not think, however, that 
the Commons should have accepted the Lords' amend- 



1 He was invested on his return in October. 



406 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

ment throwing the wear and tear of the buildings on 
the rates. 

' We are, on the whole, in many respects behindhand 
in education/ he wrote to Mr. Rusden, the Australian 
historian, December 23, 1902, 'and I hope this will 
bring us into line with other nations, but it is depress- 
ing to see how many good authorities are of opinion 
that in the rural districts education is engendering an 
extreme distaste for rural life and labour and driving 
multitudes to wretched and debilitating existences in 
the great towns. I write rather under the impression 
of Rider Haggard's very interesting survey of the agri- 
cultural condition of England — a book which has 
much impressed me. On the whole, it is very difficult 
to find the true way in politics and the world has so 
long been mismanaged by men that I am inclined to 
look with some toleration on the " monstrous regimen 
of women" you seem establishing in Australia.' 

At the end of the year 1902 Lecky wrote to the Pro- 
vost of Trinity College definitely resigning his seat. 
Many were the expressions of regret that he received, 
and they touched him very much. 

'My dear Bernard/ he wrote to the Dean of St. 
Patrick's, ' Thank you very much for your most kind 
letter. My feelings about my resignation are very 
mixed. No constituency could have been more indul- 
gent to a member than mine has been, and I deeply 
feel loosening the tie that has connected us. But my 
doctor has been urging it for nearly a year, and during 
this Parliament I have been obliged to shirk the late 
nights, to abstain from the excitement of speaking, 
and to be, in fact, little more than a voting-machine. 
I hate mortally filling a post when I feel I cannot prop- 
erly discharge its duties; the next session will be a 
very important and arduous one for Irish members, 
and the T.C.D. members are the only representatives 



RESIGNATION OF SEAT IN PARLIAMENT 407 

of Unionist Ireland in three provinces. I cannot 
throw off the feeling of heavy responsibility and am 
glad to descend from the stage to the stalls. ... I 
wish/ he added in a postscript, 'T.C.D. would carry 
out their scheme of giving degrees to women.' 

To Mr. Booth he wrote that he neither had the 
strength nor the nerve to encounter the wear and tear 
of a session which was likely to be chiefly Irish, and he 
adds 

'I am sorry for my constituents, who were very 
anxious not to be looked on as in the hands of lawyers 
aiming at professional success, but unfortunately it 
is impossible for those engaged in T.C.D. work to take 
a Parliamentary part as Anson does for Oxford or 
Jebb for Cambridge, which are within one and a half 
hours of London. I wish, like you, the Catholics and 
Protestants mixed, but T.C.D. has offered the Catholics 
a divinity professor of their own, and has thrown open 
everything to them, and a Catholic College in our 
University would mean a strong Catholic ecclesiastical 
and nominated element on the governing body of the 
University, which would, I think, lead to much evil.' 

The many notices that appeared in the papers on 
his resignation read to him almost like an obituary. 
Most of them recognised the position he had made for 
himself in the first Parliament he sat in, but the truest 
comment was probably that made by Lord Rathmore 
at the unveiling of Lecky's statue in Trinity College: 

' It was a high trial for a man at his time of life to 
enter on a new career, but having once undertaken the 
duty he fulfilled it with the same self-devotion as had 
governed him through every hour of his life. He spoke 
on many Irish topics, and eager audiences were always 
ready to listen with delight to his eloquence and his 
humour, but the period at which he entered Parliament 



408 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

was one of comparative repose and reaction on those 
questions. The battle of Home Rule had been fought 
out. The cause of the Union, for which he had pleaded 
so earnestly, was for the time shielded by large major- 
ities in both Houses of Parliament, and the occasions 
on which he spoke did not give him much scope for the 
exercise of his highest powers.' 

At the same time it was gratifying to hear from more 
than one source that he had exerted a most valuable, 
and it was to be hoped permanent, influence in helping 
to enlarge the vision of loyal men in Ireland, and of 
Englishmen about Ireland. His political life was in 
harmony with his writings. ' He has/ said the Edin- 
burgh Review / speaking of his services to Irish history, 
'infused into Irish criticism, and we may even say 
into Irish politics, an amenity of tone and a spirit of 
historical charity which have already sensibly miti- 
gated the asperities of controversy.' 

The ' Leaders' came out in the spring of 1903. Swift 
was not now included, his biography having been used, 
as previously stated, in an enlarged and revised form 
as an introduction to Bell's edition of Swift's ' Works.' 
Lecky had replaced it by an introductory sketch of 
the earlier phases of Irish history since the Revolution. 
Flood and Grattan formed one volume, while the whole 
second volume was devoted to O'Connell. It will be 
remembered how Lecky had grown up among the tra- 
ditions of these statesmen; and to the vividness of his 
early impressions he had now been able to add the 
result of his later researches and the conclusions of a 
maturer judgment. The exhaustive manner in which 
he had treated the subject was recognised in the Re- 
views. The 'Life of O'Connell' had been the most 



July 1903, 'The Social Revolution in Ireland.' 



ON ARBITRATION 409 

important part of the revision. 'It forms, in effect/ 
as the Saturday Review said, 'a new work embracing 
materials not available when the first draft was written, 
and supplies by far the best account yet provided of 
the history of Ireland, from the Union to the potato 
famine.' 'In no other work with which we are ac- 
quainted,' said the writer in the Edinburgh Review 
who has already been quoted, 'is the history of Ireland 
from the Union to the famine reviewed with such 
fulness, such fairness, and such suggestiveness.' 

The appreciative reviewer of the earliest edition of 
the 'Leaders,' Mr. O'Neill Daunt, was now dead, but 
an enthusiastic review came once more from Cork; 
'the critical study of the career and character of the 
Liberator,' said the Cork Constitution, 'is as faultless 
in its amazing grasp of facts and causes as in its literary 
style and its judicial impartiality.' Lecky had in- 
tended sending the book to Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, 
whose comments would have been most interesting 
to him, but in the February of that year Sir Charles 
had died. It had long been Lecky's wish to rewrite 
this book, and he was pleased to have accomplished 
it, but he felt the moment for publishing it was not 
propitious, for the interest in Irish affairs had now 
greatly waned and Irish history was not a popular 
subject. 

Among many other things, he was asked at that time 
to write down a few reminiscences of an old friend, 
Miss Anna Swanwick, for a memoir which a relation of 
hers was preparing. He was also asked by the editor 
of the New York World to give his views on Arbitra- 
tion for that paper, which was celebrating its twentieth 
anniversary. The question whether arbitration might 
one day supersede war was, of course, of paramount 
importance. Lecky thought that its progress depended 



410 WILLIAM EDWAKD HARTPOLE LECKY 

much less upon 'any formal treaties or enactments 
than upon the gradual education of the great masses 
of the population, creating among them a deep senti- 
ment both of the folly and of the wickedness of war.' 
In many minor questions which did not vitally touch 
the interests or passions of men a tribunal of inter- 
national arbitration would be constantly resorted to; 
it would strengthen the position of the smaller nations ; 
it would give statesmen time to pause at critical mo- 
ments, and if it could not prevent wars it might often 
help to shorten them. Much, he thought, might be 
done by arbitration, but a great revolution of public 
sentiment alone could put an end to wars, and to the 
vast preparations for war that were now so gravely 
retarding the progress of mankind. 

An American newspaper syndicate wished to have 
Lecky's opinion on the basis of an English-speaking 
alliance, and while he was in Italy in the spring he 
wrote a short paper on the subject. The sum of it was 
that it did not seem to him probable that the relations 
of England and the United States would take the form 
of any general or permanent alliance, as on both 
sides of the water the feeling in favour of reserving full 
liberty of action was very strong. 'Limited alliance 
aiming at special objects, such as the freedom of com- 
merce in the East, may very probably arise, but on 
the whole the unity of the English-speaking races is 
likely to depend much more on the increasing power 
of common sympathies, common principles, and com- 
mon interests.' 

Lecky and his wife had hoped to find sunshine on 
the Italian Lakes in May, but the spring was very 
inclement and it was not till after a fortnight, spent 
partly at Cadenabbia and at Villa d'Este in cold and 
rainy weather, that they at last had some lovely days 



HOME BILL OF 1903 411 

at Baveno and could row on the lake, which always 
was an enjoyment to Lecky, and doubly so now that 
he could take no exercise. When he returned home 
early in June he resumed for a short time more or less 
his ordinary life : he now missed the interest of Parlia- 
ment, being entirely cut off from active politics, and 
he also missed the interest of his book, which was 
finished; but he began to revise some of the essays 
which have been mentioned in the course of this Me- 
moir. He had been elected president for the year of 
the Royal Literary Fund, but unfortunately the state 
of his health made it impossible for him to fulfil the 
task of presiding over the dinner. 

The chief measure of the session was the Irish Land 
Bill, and Lecky followed it with keen interest. He had 
long been in favour of the Government assisting and 
accelerating land purchase, as the only remedy for 
getting Ireland out of the chaos into which the land 
legislation had plunged her. 

'I think,' he wrote to Mr. Booth in the summer, 'the 
Land Bill will produce immediate good results to land- 
lords and tenants, but not to other classes, and I 
believe that in the long run it is likely to drain Ire- 
land of much money, to lower the Protestant and 
civilising influences, and to act as a powerful encour- 
agement to the prevailing Irish feeling that dishonest 
combining is the best way of getting on in the world.' 

He thought that if the land of Ireland passed mainly 
into the hands of peasant proprietors the Home Rule 
movement would lose its most powerful impulse — 
though political agitation in some form or other would 
no doubt continue — and the power of resistance to 
Home Rule would also be diminished. The drain of 
money from Ireland would be very great, through in- 
creased absenteeism, through the interest of the money 



412 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

being paid into the Imperial Exchequer, and the prob- 
able investment of a large proportion of the purchase- 
money in non-Irish securities. At the same time, the 
waste of money involved in the exorbitant prices paid 
for tenant right would cease; the savings of the poorer 
classes would go more generally into the improvement 
of land; and it seemed probable that more industry 
and perseverance would be shown in cultivation, though 
the habit of cutting down trees and neglecting drainage, 
and the example of the long leaseholders of the eigh- 
teenth century, who were among the worst cultivators 
in Ireland, prevented him from being too sanguine. 
He felt it was impossible to predict what the ultimate 
consequences would be. Political prophecy usually 
proved wrong, he thought, and in Ireland especially 
institutions worked very differently from what they 
did in most other countries. He felt keenly, however, 
that power and influence were more and more taken 
away from the propertied and educated classes and 
when the King and Queen visited Ireland in the summer 
he said that the Irish landowners who received them 
were like the M oritur i te salutant. 

In the Tariff controversy — ■ opened that year by a 
speech of Mr. Chamberlain's on his return from South 
Africa — Lecky took no part. He thought that on 
the whole Free Trade was best for a great country like 
England, and that it would be difficult to give prefer- 
ential treatment to the Colonies. In the summer of 
1903 he wrote in some notes on the Empire: 

' The bond of sentiment between the different parts 
of the Empire is very strong and it is to be hoped an 
increasing one, and the pride in the greatness of a 
United Empire is a powerful influence, but the estab- 
lishment of direct material interests, though not 
impossible, is very different. There are signs that 



THE TARIFF CONTROVERSY 413 

the Colonies are not unwilling to grant trade advan- 
tages (in the form of preferential treatment) to the 
Mother-country, but it is extremely difficult for Eng- 
land to reciprocate this. The Free Trade system is 
the very basis of her present prosperity, and the statis- 
tics of her commerce show that commercially foreign 
countries, especially the United States and France, 
contribute far more to her trade than her own domin- 
ions. On the other hand, it is very doubtful whether 
the Colonies will consent to contribute anything 
really substantial to the enormous expenditure of 
the defence of the Empire. What they have as yet 
done in this directon, though showing a spirit which 
is very admirable, is really infinitesimal, and it is very 
doubtful whether democratic and mainly working- 
class communities, absorbed in local interests and 
devoting much of their national resources to class 
objects, will voluntarily assume a great burden of 
additional taxation for the defence of the Empire at 
large, for the carrying out of distant objects, or the 
enforcement of Imperial claims or interests in which 
they are not as directly concerned. This is one of the 
great problems of the future, and I do not venture to 
pronounce any decided opinion upon it. On the whole, 
it looks as if the Colonial contributions would be 
mainly in the shape of trade advantages, leaving the 
naval defence of the Empire almost wholly to Eng- 
land, but relieving her wholly of their own military 
defence and contributing something by voluntary 
and isolated action to her military assistance when 
she is engaged in war.' 

At the same time, Lecky thought that the reaction 
against the abuses of the old fiscal system had been 
carried too far, and that the question was now looked 
upon in a different light from what it was in the days 
of Cobden. Protection in one form or another per- 
vaded modern democratic legislation. In a Free Trade 



414 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

country like England the Protectionist spirit showed 
itself in the increasing tendency to regulate, restrict, 
and interfere with, industry in all its departments. 
'Free labour and Free Trade are closely connected. 
If in England those who oppose the first profess to 
be in favour of the second, this is only because most 
sections of the labouring classes believe cheap food 
to be altogether to their advantage, and because in 
the great division of industries in England they see 
no present prospect of obtaining protection for their 
own.' 1 

He had within the last years renewed the acquaint- 
ance by correspondence of a Trinity College contem- 
porary, Sir Henry Wrixon, who had sent him a book and 
to whom he wrote: 

July 7, 1903. — ' I must thank you very sincerely 
for your kindness in sending me "Jacob Shumite." 
I have already been reading some of it with great 
interest, and am going to take it next week into the 
country, where I shall probably spend very quietly 
the rest of the summer. It seems to me quite as good 
as the admirable " Political Tour " which gave me so 
much pleasure some years ago. I was amused at the 
account of the College Debating Society, which brought 
my mind vividly back to the long gone by days when 
we used to interchange and discuss our somewhat 
crude views in the "Historical." I hope you are 
better preserved than I am. An attack of influenza 
two years ago left me with a dilated heart, and since 
then I have been obliged to lead very much the life 
of an invalid — to give up Parliament and politics, 
and even in a great degree writing, for all energy and 
robustness seem to have passed away from me.' 2 

1 See Democracy and Liberty , 2 In sending this letter, Sir 

cabinet edition, vol. i. pp. 157 Henry Wrixon (member of the 
-159, 257; vol. ii. pp. 463-466. Executive Council and Legis- 



APPROACHING END 415 

The summer of 1903 was as unfavourable to an 
invalid as the spring had been, and Lecky, to his great 
regret, was advised not to go to Holland but to stay- 
in some bracing place in England. He and his wife 
went to Growborough, and afterwards an old friend, 
Lady Sligo, 1 with characteristic kindness and gener- 
osity, lent them her country house, Mount Browne, near 
Guildford, where they spent the remainder of the sum- 
mer. Relapses had by degrees become more frequent 
and prolonged, and gave great anxiety. Lecky him- 
self was much discouraged, though always patient and 
full of solicitude for others. When, in consequence 
of Lord Salisbury's death, he found himself the oldest 
elected member of 'The Club' (Johnson's Glub), he 
felt, as Mr. Venables expressed it, that 'his stick was 
near the door.' He still did a little revising of his 
Essays, he read again old books, such as Walter Scott's 
novels; he saw some friends; he continued his interest 
in all that went on in the world, but life with its sleep- 
less nights and weary days was now on the whole a 
struggle. The trial of weakness was especially great to 
an independent nature like his, and one to whom work 

lative Assembly, Melbourne) I may add that he was always 

says: 'I knew Mr. Lecky very kindly in his manner — 

slightly at Trinity College, especially, I think, to juniors. 

Dublin. He was leaving the After he left Trinity my per- 

year that I entered. He was sonal knowledge of him ceases, 

one of the lights of the His- and I knew him only in litera- 

torical Society, admired by ture, in which he took such a 

me from afar. I remember foremost position. But when 

we all felt the great command I was attempting a little 

of language that he possessed authorship myself, he wrote 

and the new light in which he giving me useful information 

would present subjects. He as to publishing, &c.' 
used to maintain advanced * Isabelle Marchioness of 

views and enlightened ones. Sligo was the daughter of a 



416 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

was the first condition of life. In October he stayed 
at Brighton, where he had always liked the good air, 
but it did not prevent weakness increasing from an 
incurable cause. By the doctor's advice he returned 
home, and a few days later, on October 22, the end 
came suddenly in his library. ' Give us timely death/ 
he wrote in his ' Map of Life/ ' is one of the best prayers 
that man can pray/ and that was now fulfilled for him. 

The innumerable letters of sympathy received after 
Lecky's death from far and wide, from young and old, 
from men and women, from political friends and politi- 
cal opponents, were unanimous in their high appre- 
ciation of his character as well as of his intellectual 
eminence, and this was expressed in the first place in 
a kind message from the King. 

'Never did I see more equable goodness in any 
man/ wrote an old Trinity College friend, Dr. Mahaffy; 
'his nature soared above the vulgar passions and in- 
trigues of the world, and so he commanded the respect 
of all creeds and classes — a great loss to his friends, 
he is still a greater loss to his country, and to the whole 
republic of letters, which he not only adorned but puri- 
fied by the high intellectual and moral tone of his 
works. . . . And if it was indeed an inestimable 
privilege to know and to love him, it cannot but be 
a consolation to think upon his useful and splendid 
life.' 

'He was/ wrote the Dean of St. Patrick's, 'one of 
the best men, the most righteous men, that I have ever 
known, and I always looked up to him with affection- 
ate respect. It was a real privilege to be permitted 
to a share in his friendships. . . . Thank God the world 

remarkable woman, Mme. de in 1895, a very kind friend of 
Peyronnet, who had been for Mr. and Mrs. Lecky. 
many years, up to her death 



TRIBUTES 417 

is better for such pure and unselfish lives, and if we 
are not the better for watching them, it is to our 
shame.' 

The various societies and institutions to which Lecky 
belonged were warm in their expressions of regret, and 
many a touching tribute to his memory came from 
members of the French Institute, of which Lecky had 
become a full member in 1902. In forwarding the 
formal note of condolence, M. Picot, the Secretaire 
perpetuel, said: 'Le grand historien que perd l'Angle- 
terre etait l'honneur de la science historique et l'lnsti- 
tut de France etait fier de le compter dans ses rangs.' 
Another eminent member of that body, M. Boutmy, 
who founded the Ecole des Sciences Politiques, wrote 
'Votre mari n' etait pas seulement l'homme eminent 
que toute 1 'Europe respectait et admirait, il etait aussi 
(j'en ai fait plusieurs fois l'epreuve) l'homme plein 
de bonte, serviable a ses amis, qu'on ne pouvait pas 
connaitre sans l'aimer — j'ai eu la joie de contribuer 
a faire de lui un associe etranger de notre Academie 
et il n'y a pas de choix dont je me sois plus feliciteV 

Not the least striking testimony came from the 
Nationalist members of the Irish Literary Society. 
The Society was a non-political body, and Lecky had 
only accepted the honorary membership because it pur- 
ported to devote itself purely to the furtherance of the 
knowledge of Irish literature. The vote of regret and 
sympathy passed at its opening meeting that autumn 
was therefore dissociated from party politics. But the 
meeting was largely composed of strong Nationalists, 
and when, wrote Mr. Stephen Gwynn, 'Mr. Barry 
O'Brien, Vice-President of the Society, said in a brief 
speech that Mr. Lecky was the greatest historian that 
had been born in Ireland, and that his work was not 
only a history of the Irish people but a vindication, 
28 



418 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

the meeting did not so much applaud as express a 
deep and grateful assent.' 

' Speaking/ he added, ' as I permit myself to speak, 
for an association of men and women of whom the 
most active are nearly without exception opponents 
of the political views held by Mr. Lecky, I trust you 
will allow me to say this. We recognise in him — as 
we recognise in Horace Plunkett — a man who has 
done for Ireland work of infinite value which none of 
our side has shown ability to do. We recognise also 
that the authority derived from his achievement 
adds incalculably to the personal weight which he 
brought to the opposing side in politics. And yet 
our gratitude and admiration for the work done is 
none the less because we see that the influence derived 
from it is used against our own cause. We could not 
have those feelings were it not that every man of us 
singly, and the whole of us as a body, know and believe 
intimately that the same perfect sincerity and candour 
which were displayed in the History governed Mr. 
Lecky in drawing from the facts of history a conclu- 
sion diametrically opposite to that which we draw 
ourselves.' 

In St. Patrick's Cathedral — the national cathedral 
of Ireland — the last honours were appropriately ren- 
dered to his mortal remains. One of his most valued 
friends, the Dean of St. Patrick's, gave the funeral 
address. 'There never was a more representative 
assembly in the Cathedral than that which gathered 
there this morning,' wrote a friend. 'We all realised 
that our greatest Irishman was gone. . . . The Dean's 
address was full of genuine appreciation and admira- 
tion, and one felt that his feelings were shared by that 
vast congregation.' 

Three years after, on May 10, 1906, Lecky's bronze 



UNVEILING OF THE STATUE 419 

statue, erected by his friends and appreciators, and 
executed by Mr. Goscombe John, R.A., was unveiled 
by Lord Rathmore. Nothing could have been more 
gratifying to Lecky than that his old College friend — 
whose eloquence he had always so greatly admired, 
should have consented to speak on his memory — and 
Lord Rathmore paid a most sympathetic, touching, 
and eloquent tribute. In the course of his oration, 
giving a survey of Lecky's character and career, he 
said: 

'The general effect which Mr. Lecky produced on 
those who met him in public has been finely summed 
up by an able and impartial critic of his work and 
career, who described him as " one who held up before 
him a high ideal both in what touches the intellect 
and what touches the conscience, and who never 
abandoned it or allowed it to be obscured by self- 
seeking." That is a true description of the man, and 
no amount of intimacy could find out in him anything 
to detract from its high eulogy, for Lecky was abso- 
lutely free from insincerity or make-believe, from 
those affectations which with some men — great as well 
as small — spring from personal vanity; but behind 
that character known to the public there lay other 
qualities which gave to his companionship a peculiar 
charm and fascination. His wide and tolerant view 
of men and of affairs was ever guarded by a humor- 
ous, but at the same time searching insight into human 
motives. Patient and gentle with mere ignorance 
and stupidity in others, he was easily moved to indig- 
nation by pretension or injustice, and above all, the 
sense of oppression — came it from what quarter it 
might — kindled the fire within him, and the hot 
words of eloquent scorn poured forth like lava. Unos- 
tentatious almost to shyness, he was never anxious to 
display his knowledge, but he was always ready to 
lend his vast stores of learning for the information and 



420 WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 

amusement of his friends — he was, in fact, through 
all his life, a warm-hearted, high-minded, and kindly- 
man and a great gentleman. 

' I am sure,' said Lord Rathmore in his peroration, 
'that amidst the many great distinctions which Lecky 
won in the course of his brilliant career, none could 
have been more grateful, could he have foreseen it, 
to his mind and to his heart than that his services 
should find in this place a lasting memorial. Many 
here present must have listened to his eloquent speech 
at our Tercentenary banquet, and will remember the 
touching passage in which he confessed how keen was 
the pleasure to "an isolated author/' as he described 
himself, to think that his own University should follow 
his career with a maternal interest and might in some 
future day, when taking stock of her productions, not 
wholly forget his name and his works. That loving, 
loyal hope will be fulfilled to-day. Yonder stand the 
statues of Oliver Goldsmith and Edmund Burke, the 
warders of our gate, and close at hand, in the throng- 
ing thoroughfare, the effigy of Henry Grattan, illu- 
mined through the genius of Foley with all the fire of 
patriotism. It is well that here within these academic 
courts should rest the monument of another, not less 
illustrious in his time than they were in theirs, the 
patient, the indefatigable student, the philosopher, 
the orator, the historian, who rewrote the annals and 
vindicated the character of his countrymen, that future 
generations of students within these walls, looking upon 
this memorial, should be stirred to follow his example 
and gather hope and courage from his career to win 
success and renown for themselves, to render faithful 
service to their country as he did, and add fresh hon- 
ours to the name and fame of old Trinity.' 



INDEX 



(Figures in italics signify notes) 



Abercorn, James, 2nd Duke of, 
288 

Acton, John, 1st Baron, 93, 187, 
248, 330 

Adams, C. F., 98 

Addison, Joseph, 130 

Addison, Judge, 11, 28, 31 

Aitken, Miss, see Carlyle, Mrs. 
Alexander 

Albani, Mme., 265 

Aldborough, John Stratford, 1st 
Earl of, 2 

Alexander, Dr. (Abp. of Ar- 
magh), cited on the 'Leaders,' 
29; on the 'Rationalism,' 46 

Alexander, Prince (afterwards of 
Orange), 95, 136 

Alexandra College, Dublin, 371 

Amberley, Lord and Lady, 104 

Amiel, his Journal Intime, 204 

Angelina, Lecky, 36 

An Old Song, Lecky, 206, 268 

Antonelli, Cardinal, 99 

Arbuthnot, Rev. Robert Keith, 
11, 23, 63 

Ardagh, Sir John, 11 

Argyll, George, 8th Duke of, 218, 
259 

Armstrong, Edmund, 143 

Arnold, Matthew, 238 

Arnold-Forster, H. O., 233 

Ashbourne, Lord, 11, 15, 266, 
357, 390 

Athenaeum Club, Mr. Lecky be- 
comes a member, 58, 405 

Aumale, Due d', 295, 310; his 



Histoire des Princes de Condi, 
295 

Baden-Powell, Sir George, 237 

Bagwell, Richard, 197 and note 

Balfour, Rt. Hon. Arthur J., and 
Irish politics, 288, 336, 337, 
342, 344, 361 

Balfour, Rt. Hon. Gerald, 362, 
385 

Balfour, Lady Betty, 385 

Ball, Dr. Charles, 389 

Bampton Lectures on the Per- 
manence of Christianity, 116 

Bancroft, Frederic, 185; his For- 
mation of the Constitution of 
the United States, 186 

Banks, Sir John, 313 

Barras, Memoirs of, 294 

Bayard, T. E., on receiving 
Lecky's portrait, 308; cited 
on the 'Democracy,' 321; de- 
parture of, 331 

Beaconsfield, Earl of, 306; see 
also Disraeli 

Beaufort, Mme. de, 306 

Bemis, George, 307 

Bernard, Dr. (Dean of St. Pat- 
rick's), 371, 403, 406, 416-7, 
418 

Bismarck, Prince, 83, 84, 86, 87; 
and universal suffrage, 203 

Blake, Mrs., 266 

Blennerhassett, Lady, her Mme. 
de Stael, 262 

Boehm, Sir Edgar Joseph, and 



421 



422 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



Carlyle Memorial, 174, 178; 

his bust of Lecky, 252; death 

of, 252 
Boer war, 379, 380-1, 397 
Bonghi, M., 239 
Booth, Arthur, 11 and note; 

friendship of, with Lecky, 12, 

13, 23; letters to, 24 et sqq, 

254 
Bossuet, 256 

Boutmy, M., on Lecky, 417 
Bowen, Charles, 3 
Bowen, Charles Hartpole, 3; 

letters to, 65-6 et sqq; his 

translation of Faust, 132 and 

note; death of, 156 
Bowyer, Sir G., 161 
Boyle, Dean (of Salisbury), 

cited 259, 376 
Brassey, Thomas, 1st Baron, 

239 
Braun, Baronne de, 807 
Bright, Jacob, 214 
Bright, Rt. Hon. John, 59, 61, 

214, 219 
British Academy, foundation of, 

400 
Brodrick, Hon. George, 299 
Brooke, Henry, 157-8 
Brooke, Rev. Richard, 8, 154, 

157-8, 183, 184 
Brookfield, Mr. and Mrs., 104 
Browning, Robert, 104, 174 
Bryce, Rt. Hon. James, his His- 
tory of the American Common- 
wealth, 247, 248, 249 
Buchanan, Robert, his City of 

Dream, 239 
Buckle, Henry Thomas, 28, 32, 

34, 45, 69, 71, 90, 121, 122, 

242, 352 
Bulgarian atrocities, 128, 129, 

131 
Bunbury, Lady, 243 
Bunsen, Mme. de, 97 
Burke, Sir Bernard, 125, 127, 

137, 194, 197 
Burke, Edmund, 186, 187, 188, 



221, 420; centenary of, 348; 

Lecky's speech on, 348-56 
Burke, Thomas Henry, murder 

of, 192 
Butler, Dr. H. M., 253, 265 
Butler, Sir Thomas, 288 
Butt, Isaac, 88 

Cadogan, George, 5th Earl, 345, 
348, 371 

Cairnes, Professor J. E., 111-2 

Cambridge Modern History, 330 

Canning, Hon. Albert, his Lit- 
erary Influence in British His- 
tory, 241-2 

Canning, George, on Burke, 356 

Cardwell, Lady, 6 and note 

Carlyle, Alexander, 164 

Carlyle, Mrs. Alexander, mar- 
riage of, 164; independence 
of, 174 

Carlyle, Thomas, relations of, 
with Lecky, 63, 67, 68, 85, 
87, 93, 106, 146; Lecky on, 
107-09; his view of history, 
122; in failing health, 130, 
151, 170, 171, 172; death, 
172-3; funeral, 173-4; re- 
ferred to, 133, 137, 139, 147, 
158, 164, 263, 275, 347, '367; 
his Reminiscences, 174 et sqq, 
208 

Carnarvon, Henry, 4th Earl of, 
213 

Carnwath, 8th Earl of, 10, 29, 
62 

Carnwath, 9th Earl of, 113 

Carnwath, Lady, 36, 102-3, 113, 
405; see also Wilmot, Miss 

Carson, Right Hon. Sir Edward, 
325 

Catechism of the History of Ire- 
land, O'Neill Daunt, 182 

Catherine, Russian Grand Duch- 
ess, 81 

Cavendish, Lord Frederick, mur- 
der of, 192 

Cetewayo, 199 



INDEX 



423 



Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, 

219, 245, 288, 374, 381, 385, 

412 
Charlemont, James, 1st Earl of, 

96 
Chetwode, Miss Alice Wilmot, 

8, 112 
Chetwode, Knightley, 12, 16, 19, 

20, 22, 63, 83, 100, 101 
Chetwode, Wilmot, 71 
Childers, Rt. Hon. Hugh C. E., 

202, 392 
Clancy, J. J., 338 
Clarendon, George, 4th Earl of, 

74 
Clark, Sir Andrew, death of, 292 
Cleveland, President, 330 
Cobbe, Miss F. P., 104 
Code Napoleon, 115 
Colenso, Bishop, 199 
Colley, Sir George, 199 
Commonplace Books, Lecky, 

cited, 9, 15, 20, 67, 72, 107, 

113, 118, 150, 227, 236, 293, 

331, 391 
Comte, comment on, 63, 63-4, 69 
Condorcet, 69 
Copyright Act, British, evasion 

of in Canada, 300-2 
Copyright Bill, American, 263, 

264, 301 
Countess Kathleen, Yeats, 375-6 
Crampton, Sir John, 123 
Crampton, Miss Selina, 123 
Cullen, Cardinal, 96 

Damer, Capt., 80 

Darwin, Charles Robert, his 
Descent of Man published, 90, 
127 

Daunt, O'Neill, reviews Lecky's 
'Leaders,' 29; political type 
of, 143-4 and note; corre- 
spondence with, 159, 161, 166, 
168, 178, 182, 192, 214; death, 
409 

Declining Sense of the Miracu- 
lous, The, Lecky, 36, 38 



Dedem, Elisabeth Baroness van, 
81, 85 sqq, 89-94; see also 
Lecky, Mrs. 
Dedem, General Baron van, 89 
Dedem, Baron W. van, 182; 

death of, 303-4 
Democracy and Liberty, Lecky, 
cited, 28, 61, 78, 181, 202, 244, 
263, 283, 296, 303, 306, 317, 
343, 344, 346, 369, 371-2, 4U; 
commencement of, 269; ap- 
pearance of, 319; comment on, 
320 et sqq 
Derby, Countess of, 103, 289, 

294-5 
Derby, 15th Earl of, 103, 149, 
174, 200, 247, 270-1, 289, 
294-5 
Descent of Man, Darwin, 90 
Devonshire, 8th Duke of, 218, 288 
Dicey, Professor A. V., 248 
Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy, 4 
Disraeli, Benjamin, 59, 127 
Dixon, W. Hepworth, 96 
Dollinger, Dr. I. von, cited on 
differences in Catholicism, 256 
'Doppers,' 201 

Dowden, Professor E., 11; his 
Life of Shelley, 227; on 
Lecky's letter to Dublin Con- 
vention, 272; on Burke, 357 
Doyle, Henry, death of, 281 
Dublin, Archbishop of (Dr. Pea- 

cocke), 371 
Dudley, Thomas, 357 
Dufferin and Ava, Marquis of, 
265, 276, 317, 382; cited on 
the 'Democracy,' 320-1; and 
Irish politics, 342, 343; death, 
401 
Dufferin and Ava, Marchioness 

of, 276 
Dunlop, Mrs., 242-3 
Dunne, General, 339 
Dupanloup, Bishop, 40, 86 
Durnford, Bishop (of Chiches- 
ter), 297 



424 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



Dvorak, Anton, 265 

Earle, Mr. and Mrs., 104 
Early Recollections of Mr. Lecky, 

Booth, cited, 10, 14, 16 et sqq. 
Edinburgh Review : ' The Social 

Revolution in Ireland,' 408 
Edward VII., King, 292, 404 
Elliot, Hon. Arthur, 273, 315 
Elliot, Sir Frederick and Lady, 

104 
Elliot, Miss, 113 
Emly, Lord, 171 
English in Ireland, The, Froude, 

110, 111, 112, 141 
Empire, The, Lecky, 292 
English Thought in the Eight- 
eenth Century, Leslie Stephen, 

133 
Erckmann-Chatrian, Waterloo, 

279 
Erlach, General von, 204 

Falkiner, C. Litton, his Studies 
in Irish History, 399 and note 

Fashoda, 370 and note 

Fawcett, Henry, and Irish Uni- 
versity education, 109, 110 

Felix, Pere, 38 

Finlay, Sir Robert, 233, 234 

Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 243 

Fitzgibbon, Lord Justice, 11, 
357, 371, 390 

Fitzpatrick, Sir Dennis, 11, 

Fitzwilliam, Lord, 222 

Flood, Henry, 96, 408 

Flower, Sir William, 265 

Fortnightly Club, the, 127 

Foster, John, 243 

Franco-German war, the, 83 et 
sqq 

Franqueville, Comte de, 293 

Frazer, James George, 304 

Frederick, German Emperor, 
231 

Freeman, Edward Augustus, 
death of, 270 

Frere, Sir Bartle, 199 



Froude, James Anthony, 44, 47, 
93, 125, 126, 134, 135, 137, 140, 
141, 149, 173; The English in 
Ireland, 110 et sqq; death, 299 

Gaeta, fall of, 26-7 
Gavan Duffy, Sir Charles, 110-1, 
117, 213, 229; writings of, 
141, 196, 274-5; death, 409 
Gavazzi, Signor, 100 
Geikie, Professor A. J., 265 
Gibbon, Edward, 71, 203, 204, 

323 
Gibson, Edward, see Ashbourne 
Gill, T. P., 386 
Gladstone, Sir Thomas, 180 
Gladstone, William Ewart, Irish 
policy of, 73, 74, 79-80, 171, 
179, 180, 210, 212-3, 217-8, 
223-4, 233-4, 273, 284, 285, 

286, 339; controversy of, 
with Lecky, 153-5; and M. 
Reville, 211; repeal of the 
income tax, 229-30; Parnell 
divorce case, 264; resignation, 
295, 305; Lecky's estimate of, 
372; referred to, 5, 59, 60, 63, 
109, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 
159, 175, 176, 216, 226, 274, 

287, 369-70 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 350, 355, 420 
Gonzenbach, M. de, 203, 204, 

205 
Gordon, General C. G., 205 
Goschen, Viscount, 288 
Gould, Sir F. Carruthers, 316 
Gowan, Senator Sir James, 148, 

248, 260, 264, 292, 295, 297, 

300, 305, 345, 369, 396 
Grand, M. Paul, 29J± 
Grant-Duff, Sir Mountstuart, 48, 

293, 318, 372 
Grattan, Henry, 10, 30, 32, 96, 

193, 221, 222, 223-4, 392, 408, 

420 
Gray, Thomas, 263 
Gray, Dr. F., T.C.D., 388 
Green, Mrs. J., Letter to, 199 



INDEX 



425 



Green, John Richard, death of, 
199 

Greg, W. R., 104, 199 

Gregg, Dr. John (Bishop of 
Cork), 16, 19, 41, 195 

Gregg, Dr. Robert (Abp. of 
Armagh), 312 

Gregory, Lady, and Mr. Greg- 
ory's Letter Box, 367 ; 375 

Gregory, Sir William, 171 ; death 
of, 281 

Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl, 251 

Grey, Albert, afterwards 4th 
Earl Grey, 234 

Grillion's Club, 239 

Guyot, M., his Tyranny of So- 
cialism, 299 

Gwynn, Dr. John, 313 

Haggard, H. Rider, 406 

Halle, Sir Charles and Lady, 
296 

Halliday Pamphlets, the, 156 

Hannen, Sir James, 239, 240 

Harcourt, Sir W. G. V., con- 
troversy with Lecky, 221, 226 

Harris, Admiral, 95 

Hartington, Spencer, Marquess 
of, 117; and National Liberal 
Federation, 233, 234 

Hartpole, George, 3 

Hartpole, Maria, 2, 3, 59 

Hartpole, Robert, 2 

Hayward, Abraham, his article 
on Croker, 127 

Healy, Father, 123, 193, 197 

Healy, Timothy, 338 

Hecker, Father, 77-8 

Hegel, 69 

Henry, Rev. Matthew, cited, 4 

Herder, 69 

Hereford, Lord James of, 289 

Hirst, W. A., and the ' Morals,' 
70-1 

Historical and Political Essays, 
Lecky, 262, 263, 280, 288, 
290, 293, 295, 348, 375, 384, 
392 



Historical Society (T. C. D.), 15- 
17, 18, 20, 36, 124, 127, 200, 
266, 329, 357, 390 

History of England in the Eight- 
eenth Century, Lecky, appear- 
ance of first two volumes, 137; 
comment on, 141-4; second 
two volumes, 185 ; comment on, 
186 et sqq; third two volumes, 
227; comment on, 228-9; con- 
clusion of the History, 251; 
and appearance of last vol- 
umes, 258; comment on, 258- 
60; new editions of, 269, 281; 
reference to, 89, 115, 118, 119, 
122, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 
133, 145, 147, 148, 149, 168, 
175, 178, 184, 192, 238, 258 

History of European Morals, 
Lecky, commencement of, 55; 
appearance of, 67; comment 
on, 67-8; reference to, 68-9, 
70, 71, 82, 91, 115, 125, 128, 
129, 201, 378 

History of Ireland, Lecky, 157, 
238, 251 

History of the Rise and Influence 
of the Spirit of Rationalism in 
Europe, Lecky, commence- 
ment of, 35; appearance of, 
44; comment on, 44 et sqq; 
reference to, 22, 25, 36-7, 43, 
68-9, 72, 82, 97, 121, 128, 201 

Holland, Sir Henry, 64, 93, 105 

Houghton, Richard, 1st Baron, 
93 

Hugo, Victor, 26 

Huxley, Professor T. H., 105, 
106, 120-1 

Hyacinthe, Pere, 100, 101 

Imelmann, Dr. I., 293 
Ingram, Rev. J. Kells, 14 
Institute, French, the Centenary 

of, 310-1 
Ireland in the Light of History, 

Lecky, 262 
Ireland, Financial Relations 



426 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



with England, 337 sqq, 357, 

358, 365, 366, 383-4 
Irish Church Disestablishment, 

73-5 
Irish Land Bills, 1870, 78-80; 

1881, 178, 179, 180, 181, 198; 

1896, 317, 318, 324-7; 1903, 

411, 412 
Irish Local Government Bill, 

1898, 362, 363, 364 
Irish Sunday Closing Bill, 344 
Irish University Education, 109, 

151-2, 332 et sqq 
Irish Vice-Royalty, 230, 231 

Jameson Raid, the, 329 
Jebb, Sir Richard, 300 
Jephson, Mrs., 123 
Jerome, King of Westphalia, 83 
John, R. A. Goscombe, his statue 

of Lecky, 419 
Jolowicz, Dr., 73, 121 
Jones, Dr. Bence, 110 
Jowett, Dr. Benjamin, 147 

Kelvin, William, 1st Baron, 

270, 303, 304 
Killanin, Lord (Martin Morris), 

election of, 387 
Kinglake, Alexander William, 

93, 105; on Lecky's 'History 

of England/ 228; his Crimean 

War, 239 
Knight, Professor, 253 
Knollys, Rev. Erskine, 9, 10 
Knox, Edmund Francis Vesey, 

341 
Kruger, President, in England, 

200; Lecky on, 201, 377 

Lacaita, Sir James, 98 

La Marmora, General, 98 

Lamartine, 26 

Lansdowne, Henry, 5th Mar- 
quess of, 239 

Laveleye, M. de, his Gouverne- 
ment dans la Democratic, 279 

Lawless, Hon. Emily, her Essex 



in Ireland, 255 

Layard, Sir Austen Henry, 130, 
303 

Lea, Henry Charles, correspond- 
ence with, 52, 68, 118, 185, 
235 et sqq, 256 et sqq, 264, 265, 
285, 297-8, 308, 322 

Leaders of Public Opinion, Lecky, 
appearance of, 29-30; com- 
ment on, 30, 35, 144; revisions 
of, 88, 89, 95, 384, 398; trans- 
lated into German, 97; re- 
vised edition appears, 408; 
comment on, 409; reference 
to, 24, 220, 224-5, 252, 273, 
323 

Lecky, Capt. Alexander, 2 

Lecky, George Eardley, 6, 103; 
death, 113 

Lecky, John, 3, 7 

Lecky, John Hartpole, 1, 5, 6; 
death, 8 

Lecky, Mrs., reference to, 98, 99, 
106, 115, 121, 122, 125, 131, 
134, 135, 136, 148, 151, 153, 
163, 165, 172, 189, 190, 191, 
197, 198, 199, 200, 226, 228, 
232, 234, 235, 239, 240, 241, 
242, 247, 258, 265, 266, 275, 
279, 291, 296, 297, 299, 304, 
306, 308, 347, 369, 371, 385, 
397, 401, 410, 415-8 

Lecky, William Edward Hart- 
pole, ancestry of, 1-5; birth 
of, 6; school days, 7, 8, 9; at 
Quedgeley, 9-10; at Trinity 
College, Dublin, 11 et sqq; 
connexon of, with Irish poli- 
tics, 8, 14, 19, 65-6, 73 et sqq, 
78-80, 88-9, 109, 117, 151-2, 
159 et sqq, 165-70, 178-80, 
181, 192-3, 202, 209-10, 212 
et sqq, 271 et sqq, 317, 325-7, 
332 et sqq, 337 et sqq, 344, 359, 
360, 361-2, 362-3, 364, 366, 
372-3, 383-5, 393-4, 399-400, 
411-2; theological and liter- 
ary studies of, 13-14, 23-4, 31, 



INDEX 



427 



37, 38; speeches at the His- 
torical Society, 15-17; early- 
poems of, 17-18; love of 
travel, 19-20, 21, 24, 32; on 
choice of a profession, 34-35; 
authors and political economy, 
41 ; lecture on Early Christian 
Art, 43; his dislike of noise, 
54, 118; on literary workman- 
ship, 56-7; in Albemarle 
Street, 58; Lecture on 'Influ- 
ence of Imagination on His- 
tory,' 64; on the historical 
method, 68-70 ; overwork, 71- 
2; various translations of his 
works, 73; on papal infalli- 
bility, 78; relations of, with 
Queen Sophia of Holland, 82- 
4, 89, 95, 103, 134-6; meets 
his future wife, 81; on the 
Franco-German war, 84, 85-7, 
90,91; descriptions of Ireland, 
87-8, 125-6, 240, 241, 242, 
318, 385-6; his marriage, 89, 
94-5; society and solitude, 92; 
at Onslow Gardens, 103-4; 
friends and acquaintances, 
104-6; relations of, with Car- 
lyle, 106, 107-8, 130, 137, 164, 
171, 172, 173-7, 367; reviews 
'Froude's English in Ireland,' 
110-2; death of his step- 
brother, 113; on parliament- 
ary life, 115, 116, 117; on a 
Home Rule debate, 117; Irish 
friends, 123, 124; working at 
MSS. in the British Museum, 
119, 235; in the Record Office, 
119, 156, 162, 192; in Dublin 
Castle Four Courts, 124-8, 
137, 153, 156, 193; in the 
Paris Archives, 131, 207, 208, 
209, 233; on Turkish affairs, 
132, 133; the 'Irish Chapters/ 
134, 137, 139, 140, 178; eye 
trouble, 145, 150, 204, 207-8; 
on changes in Oxford, 147; 
on Dutch society, 153; hon- 



orary degree of Dublin Uni- 
versity, 153; relations of, 
with Mr. Gladstone, 153-5, 
229-30, 369, 372; on Burke, 
188, 348-56; LL.D. of St. An- 
drews, 205-6; relations of, with 
M. Reville, 211; anti-Home 
Rule speeches, 219, 234, 245-7; 
articles on Home Rule, 220, 
272-3, 284; portrait by Wells, 
239; D.C.L. Oxford, 239-40; 
on Catholicism, 256-7; divi- 
sion of Irish portion of the 
'History' from the English, 
261-2; on literary copyright, 
263-4, 300-2; on the Parnell 
divorce case, 264; Honorary 
Degree at Cambridge, 265; 
the Regius Professorship, Ox- 
ford, 270; speech at Trinity 
College Tercentenary, 277-8; 
President of the Cheltonian 
Society, 289; on Dutch na- 
tional survivals, 291; Corre- 
spondent of French Institute, 
293; member of, 1902, 417; 
Memoir of Lord Derby, 294-5; 
LL.D. Glasgow, 303, 304; 
stands for Dublin University, 
308-10; seat contested, 311-4; 
first speech in Parliament, 316 ; 
President of the Social and 
Political Educational League, 
323 ; made a Privy Council- 
lor, 346; on England's atti- 
tude towards Germany, 367-8; 
on American foreign policy, 
368; on women's education, 
371; on Old Age Pension 
scheme, 374, 375; the Irish 
National Theatre, 375, 376; 
the Boer war, 379, 380-2, 397; 
re-elected for Dublin Univer- 
sity, 388-9; article on Queen 
Victoria, 392; failing health, 
394, 395, 401-2, 414; at Har- 
rogate, 397; wishes to resign 
his seat, 402 et sqq; receives 



428 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



the Order of Merit, 404, 405; 
definite resignation, 406-7; on 
Arbitration, 409-10; on Tariff 
controversy, 412-4; death, 
416; public regret for, 416 et 
sqq; funeral ceremony, 418; 
statue of, 419; works of, see 
under separate headings 

Lee, Miss A. L., her Life of Lord 
Stratford de Reddiffe, 332 

Leroy Beaulieu, M., his Israel 
Among the Nations, 290 

Lever, Charles, 52, 53, 94 

Lewes, George Henry, 64 

Lewis, Sir G. Cornewall, his 
Essay on Irish Disturbances, 
209 

Liddon, Dr., 240 

Lister, Joseph, 1st Baron, 153 

Literary Society, the, Lecky 
becomes a member, 120 

Littre, M., 63, 64 

Locker-Lampson, Frederick, on 
Lecky's poetry, 267 

Londonderry, Charles, 6th Mar- 
quess of, 231 

Long, Dr., case of, 396 

Longmans, Messrs., 42, 96, 225, 
252 

Longman, Thomas, 44, 46, 47, 
191 

Lowe, Dr., 141 

Lowe, Robert (Viscount Sher- 
brooke), 60, 149 

Lubbock, Sir John (afterwards 
Lord Avebury), 318 

Lyall, Sir Alfred, cited on Lecky's 
History of England, 188-9; on 
Lecky's Poems, 268; his Life 
of the Marquis of Dufferin and 
Ava, 320, 401; reference to, 
265, 276 

Lyell, Sir Charles, geological 
discoveries, 13, 49, 104; and 
Darwin, 127; and British 
Copyright Act, 301 

Macatjlay, Lord, 127, 130, 311 



Mackintosh, Sir James, 349 
Madan, Martin, quoted, 57 
Mahaffy, Professor J. P., 124, 

195, 197, 357, 416 
Maine, Sir Henry, 122; death, 

238 
Maitland, Sir Frederick, 7 
Mallet, Sir Lewis and Lady, 

105 
Manning, Cardinal H. E., 255-6 
Martineau, Dr., 239, 240 
Map of Life, Lecky, commence- 
ment of, 331; conclusion of, 
377; appearance of, and com- 
ment on, 378-9; reference to, 
113, 347, 416 
Marlborough, John, 6th Duke of, 

152 
Massereene, 11th Viscount, 243 
Max Miiller, 174 
May, Sir Thomas Erskine, 79, 

147, 151, 179, 218 
Mazzini, 101 

Memoires du General Marbot, 269 
Metschnikoff, Professor, 265 
Miles, Rev. Canon, 233 and note 
Mill, John Stuart, 64, 70 
Milman, Dean, cited on Lecky's 
'Rationalism,' 45, 47, 48; re- 
ferred to, 49, 58-9; Lecky's 
article on, 384 
Minghetti, M., 99, 100 
Minto, Countess, 104 and note 
Minto, 3rd Earl of, 104 
Molinari, M., cited on Irish rents, 

166 
Monck, Lady, 123 
Monck, Charles, 4th Viscount 

and 1st Baron, 123, 171 
Moore, Dr., 239 
Moore, Thomas, quoted, 277 
Moral Aspects of the South Afri- 
can War, Lecky, 380 
Mori, M., 201-2 

Morley, Rt. Hon. John, 221, 344 
Morris and Killanin, Lord, 76, 
197, 215, 220, 312, 387; death, 
388 



INDEX 



429 



Motley, John Lothrop, 135 
Mundella, Rt. Hon. Anthony 

John, 293 
Miinz, Dr., 397 

Newman, Cardinal J. H., 256, 

257 
Newton, Sir Charles, 105 
Northcote, Stafford Henry, 1st 

Earl of, his Thirty Years of 

Financial Policy, 127 
Norton, Eliot, 208 
Norton, the Hon. Mrs., 207 

Obera mmergatj Passion 

Play, 25, 95 
O'Brien, Barry, 417 
O'Brien, Edward, 11, 12, 219 
O'Brien, Judge (William), and 

the Phcenix Park murder 

trials, 196, 198 
O'Connell, Daniel, 7, 96, 113, 

193, 401, 408 
O'Connell, Mrs. {nee Bianconi), 

197 
O'Connor, Morris, Judge, 324, 

325 
O'Dwyer, Bishop, and Irish Uni- 
versity question, 332, 333 
Old Age Pensions, 374-5 
O'Shea, Mrs., 265 

Palmer, Sir Roundell, see Sel- 
borne, Earl of 

Palmer, William, 54 

Parker, C. S., his Sir Robert Peel, 
263 

Parnell, Charles Stewart, 159, 
160, 162, 193, 194, 244, 247, 
264, 265, 271-2, 367, 369-70 

Peel, Sir Robert, 263 

Pelham, Thomas, political corre- 
spondence of, 234 

Pelly, Sir Lewis, death of, 281 

Personal Recollections of O'Con- 
nell, O'Neill Daunt, lJfi 

Phelps, E. L, 238 

Philpotts, Bishop, 152 



Phcenix Park murders, the, 192, 

193, 194; trial of assassins, 

196, 198 
Picot, M. Georges, on Lecky, 

294, 417 
Pitt, William, 222, 223, 263 
Pius IX., and the African 

Bishop, 77 
Plunket, David, see Rathmore, 

Lord 
Plunkett, Sir Horace, his services 

to Ireland, 341, 366, 373, 418; 

his election opposed, 386, 387 
Poems, Lecky, 267, 268 
Political Value of History, The, 

Lecky, 280 
Pollock, Sir Frederick and Lady, 

105 
Pope Hennessy, Sir John, 141 
Pope, Rev. Richard, hvmn by, 

183 
Prendergast, John Patrick, 

author of The Cromwellian 

Settlement, 124, 127, 195, 197 
Prestwich, Dr. Joseph, 239 
Prolegomena of the History of 

Religions, Reville, 211 

Rathmore, Lord (David Plun- 
ket), 11, 17, 20, 43, 96, 266, 
276, 357; elevation of, to the 
peerage, 308; the Irish Uni- 
versity question, 336; his 
speech on the unveiling of 
Lecky's statue, 407-8, 419-20 

Reay, Donald, 11th Baron, 205 

Rebellion of 1798, Centenary of, 
366 

Redmond, John, 365, 393 

Reeve, Henry, 44, 46, 104, 139, 
263, 293, 295; death, 310 

Reeves, Bishop, 384 

Reid, Stuart, his Life of Lord 
John Russell, 300 

Religious Tendencies of the Age, 
Lecky, appearance of, 22; 
comment on, 22-3, 51; refer- 
ence to, 20, 24, 97, 255 



430 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



Reminiscences, Carlyle, 174, 175, 

177, 208 
Renan, Ernest, 86, 162 
Reville, Albert, cited on the 

'Rationalism,' 49-50; Hib- 

bert Lecturer, 211; cited on 

Lecky's style, 294 
Rhodes, James Ford, his History 

of the United States, 290, 306-7 
Riano, Mme. de, 189 
Ripon, George, 1st Marquess of, 

and British Copyright Act, 301 
Ristori, Mme., 25, 37, 136, 194 
Ritter, Dr. I. H., 121 
Roberts, Earl, his Forty-one 

Years in India, 347; referred 

to, 382, 395, 397, Jfil, 404-5 
Robertson, David, 304 
Romanoff, House of, 81 
Roosevelt, President, and the 

Map of Life, 379 
Rosebery, Archibald, 5th Earl 

of, 295-6 
Rouher, M., 85 
Royal Commission on taxation 

(1896), 337 et seq, 357-8 
Royal Institution, lectures at, 

62, 64-5, 105 
Royal Literary Fund, 270, 411 
Rusden, George William, corre- 
spondence with, 320, 393, 401, 

406 
Russell, Lord Arthur, 105; death 

of, 281 
Russell, Earl (Lord John), 58, 

74, 78, 79, 93, 97, 104, 130, 

251; death of, 199 
Russell, Hon. Rollo, 300 
Russell, Rt. Hon. T. W., 233, 

393 
Russell, Lady William, 105 
Russia, Lecky's ' Rationalism' 

suppressed in, 97; and Con- 
stantinople, 130 

St. Albans, Duchess of, 197; 

Duke and Duchess of, 233 
Salisbury, Robert, 3rd Marquess 



of, 98, 132, 214, 231, 270, 288; 
death, 415 

Salmon, Dr., 276, 348, 361; on 
Lecky's Map of Life, 379 

Samuels, Mrs., 312 

Saunderson, Col., 325, 338, 359, 
365 

Scharf, Sir George, 268 

Scherer, M., 62 

Scott, Sir Charles, 11 

Selborne, Roundell, 1st Earl of, 
61, 218; Memorials of the Earl 
of, 367 

Senior, Nassau William, his 
'Conversations' with leading 
Frenchmen, 150; his 'Con- 
versations on Ireland,' 209 

Sermoneta, Duke de, 78, 99 

Sherman, General, 99 

Shore, Canon Teignmouth, 11 

Simpson, Mr. and Mrs., 105 

Sligo, Isabelle, Marchioness of, 
415 and note 

Smit, General, 200 

Smith, Adam, cited on Burke, 
352 

Smith, Prof. W. Robertson, 176 

Snagge, Sir Thomas, 11, 15, 24 

Somerville, Mrs., 53 

Sophia, Queen of the Nether- 
lands, descent of, 81 ; character 
and qualities of, 82; political 
sympathies of, 83; gives Mrs. 
Lecky's wedding-breakfast, 95 ; 
illness and death, 134—6; refer- 
ence to, 89, 97, 103, 131 

Souvenirs de Tocqueville, 287 

Spedding, James, 104 

Spencer, Herbert, 105; regulates 
his work, 118; his theories, 
120-1, 122; his 'Sociology,' 
130; meets M. Renan, 163; at 
United Service Club, 210-1 

Spencer, John, 5th Earl, 195, 213 

Stanhope, Lady, cited on the 
'Rationalism,' 48 

Stanhope, Lord, historian, 93 

Stanley, Dean, 71, 81, 104, 139; 



INDEX 



431 



his 'elections' sermon, 165; 

and Carlyle's burial, 173, 174; 

death, 180 
Stanley, Lady (of Alderley), 104, 

105, 174, 266 
Stanley, Mrs., letter of, 7 
Stansfeld, Sir James, 61 
Stephen, Sir James, 104, 215, 216 
Stephen, Mrs. Leslie, 94 and note, 

104 
Stephen, Sir Leslie, 104, 176; 

his English Thought in the 

Eighteenth Century, 133; his 

article on Newman, 257 
Stebbing, Rev. Thomas Roscoe, 

305 
Stokes, Dr., 50 

Stokes, Professor Whitley, 384 
Stokes, Margaret M'Nair, 124 
Story, W. W., 99 
Stratford, Lady Harriet, 2, 3 
Stratford, de Redcliffe, Lord, 

93; life of, 332 
Survey of English Ethics, A, 

Lecky, 71 
Swanwick, Anna, 409 
Swift, Dean, 8, 11, 130, 408 

Tallents, Francis, character 

of, 4 
Tallents, Godfrey, brother of 

Francis, 4-5 
Tallents, Godfrey, son of W. E. 

Tallents, 5, 44 
Tallents, Mary Anne, marriage 

of, 1-2; birth of Lecky, 5-6 
Tallents, W. E., 4-5 
Talleyrand, 81 
Taylor, Sir Henry, 93, 104, 107, 

208; on the History of England, 

142-3; and Carlyle, 173, 174, 

175, 176; his 'Autobiography,' 

206-7 
Tennvson, Alfred, Lord, 68, 104, 

163, 174, 179, 216; death, 281 
Tennyson, Hallam, Lord, 281 
Thackeray, Miss, 104 
'The Club,' 120, 415 



Thirty Years of Financial Policy, 

Northcote, 127 
Thompson, Sir John, and British 

Copyright Act, 301 
Ticknor, George, 51 
Transvaal Deputation, the, 199, 

200 
Trevelyan, Rt. Hon. Sir George 

Otto, 93, 105, 193, 315 
Truth about Home Rule, The, 237 
Tulloch, John ' (Principal of St. 

Andrews), 206 
Turkey and Russia, 146 
Tyler, Dr., cited on the History 

of England, 186 
Tyndall, Professor John, 105, 

173, 174, 262, 273 

Venables, Mr., 104, 107, 415 
Vere, Aubrey de, 142, 267 
Vico, 69 
Victoria, Queen, 270, 376; in 

Ireland, 384-5; death, 391-2; 

as a Moral Force, 392 
Villari, Professor Luigi, 382 
Villiers, Charles, 105 

Wallace, Sir Donald Macken- 
zie, his History of Russia, 133 
Walpole, Sir Spencer, his 'His- 
tory,' 150 
Walsh, Archbishop, 213 
Walsingham, Thomas, 6th 

Baron, 265 
Warburton, Richard, 75 
Watts, George Frederick, his 

portrait of Lecky, 146 
Webb, Judge Thomas E., 153 
Wells, Henry Tanworth, his 

portrait of Lecky, 239 
Whately, Archbishop, 14, 207 
White, "Dr. Andrew, 50, 186, 
228-9; his History of the War- 
fare of Science with Theology, 
328-9 
White, Miss, 371 
Whiteside, James, Lord Chief 
Justice, 17 



432 



WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY 



Why Home Rule is Undesirable, 

Lecky, 262 
Wilhelmina, Queen, coronation 

of, 369 
Williams, Sir Fenwick, 133 
Wills, Rev. Freeman, 11, 47, 262 
Wilmot, Miss, first marriage of, 
6; second marriage of, 10; see 
also Carnwath, Lady 
Wilson, Sir Arthur, 11 
Wolseley, Lord, 205, 213, 276 
Wolseley, Lady, 205, 276 
Women's Liberal Unionist Asso- 
ciation, 382 
Wright, George, K.C. (after- 



wards the Hon. Mr. Justice), 

stands for Dublin University, 

309, 311 
Wrixon; Sir Henry, 11; his Jacob 

Shumite, 414 and note 
Wiirtemburg, House of, 81 ; King 

of, 136 
Wyse, Miss, 113 

Yeats, W. B., his Countess 

Kathleen, 375-6 
Young Ireland, Gavan Duffy, 

141 

Zola, his 'D6bacle,' 279 



OCT 26 t§©s 







r>FL. TO Qf 

NOV 6 jyoi# 



